AI for Architecture Practices in Lothian
Architecture practices across Lothian work in territory that ranges from Edinburgh's suburban edges to the market towns and rural settlements that stretch out toward East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian. Studios in Musselburgh, Haddington and Livingston deal with a different project mix to city centre practices but carry the same document load. Conservation area conditions on the older market town stock, affordable housing commissions from the local councils, and the commercial and industrial development that follows the main road and rail corridors out of the capital. The Scottish planning framework and Historic Environment Scotland's consent requirements sit across all of it. Partners still draw. Associates still run planning. Technologists still own the Revit standards. The production paperwork underneath all of that is where the week quietly drains. Fee proposals written from scratch. Planning statements that take three days. Drawing registers that slip behind when a project hits a tender deadline.
How we help architecture practices in Lothian
Fee proposals that reuse what the practice already knows
A fee proposal for a RIBA stages one to four commission on a Haddington conservation area refurbishment, a Livingston commercial build or a rural residential project in East Lothian is a scoping exercise the practice has done many times. The partner still writes it from scratch because the last comparable proposal is in a folder nobody opens mid-week. Three or four hours go before the draft is ready to send, and by then the client is starting to wonder whether the enquiry registered. Across the partner group the practice is quietly funding a part-time proposal-writing role that was never in anyone's budget.
We wire up a tool that reads the practice's past proposals, fee agreements and stage packages, and drafts a starting fee proposal from a short brief the partner types in. Scope by RIBA stage, fees in the structure the practice has always used, assumptions in the house voice, timeline calibrated against the last three comparable projects. The partner reviews and edits before anything goes out. The judgement stays with the partner. The hunting and the retyping go.
A twenty-five-person professional services firm we work with took proposal time from four or five hours to under one using a very similar set-up, and ended up sending more proposals per month because the partners stopped being the bottleneck. The architecture version runs at lower volume and higher craft, but the shape of the win holds. Proposals go out the same day the brief arrives.
Planning statements assembled in hours, not three days
A full planning submission for a listed building in one of Lothian's conservation areas, or a change-of-use application under the Scottish planning framework, is a serious piece of document work. Design and access statement, historic environment statement where Historic Environment Scotland's interest is engaged, pre-application correspondence, planning history for the address, policy references from the relevant Lothian council's local development plan: all assembled into a coherent document. On a good week the associate running the project manages it. On a bad week the submission slips because the same associate is closing a tender package for a West Lothian housing commission.
We build a drafter that sits on top of the practice's own archive of submitted statements, the relevant local development plan PDFs and the pre-app notes, and produces a starting draft from the site address and a brief. Policy references checked against the current plan. Heritage context written against the practice's own archive. Design and access language in the voice the practice uses. The associate reviews and edits before it goes to the council. A three-day assembly becomes a half-day review.
Drawing register reconciliation without the Friday stand-off
On any live Lothian project the drawing register is what quietly falls behind. The technologist issues drawings to the contractor, the QS marks up comments, the architect issues a revision, and the information release schedule lags because nobody has a free hour to reconcile the spreadsheet. By Friday the issue pack is going out and somebody is still working out which revision of the M and E drawings matches which revision of the architectural set.
We set up a light layer that reads drawings out of Revit or BIM 360, RFIs out of the contractor's system and markups out of the QS's email, and keeps the drawing register and information release schedule in sync automatically. It flags mismatches before the issue pack is packaged and drafts the cover letter in the format the practice has always used. The project architect still signs off every issue. The Friday reconciliation drops out.
“The partners had stopped dreading the admin side of winning new business. That felt like the real result.”
One problem at a time
We work on one problem at a time. No transformation programmes, no glossy strategy decks, no retainer signed before you have seen anything running. The first conversation is a free AI Opportunity Report. Fifteen minutes on the phone, and within twenty-four hours you get a written report that picks two or three places where AI would pay for itself quickly in your practice, with honest estimates of what it would cost and how long it would take.
If one of the ideas looks worth doing, we talk about doing it. If none of them do, the report is yours to keep. No sales call, no pressure to move faster than you want to.
We are based just across the border in the north east
We are based just across the border in the north east, about ninety minutes from most Lothian practices, which in practice means we are easy to reach when a meeting matters. The practices we talk to across the Lothian councils tend to be partner-led, between three and fifteen people, and the partners have been through enough BIM rollouts and Historic Environment Scotland consent cycles to be properly sceptical of anything that promises transformation. Conservation area conditions in East Lothian market towns, affordable housing commissions, West Lothian commercial development: the project pressures vary but the document load is the same everywhere. We pick one specific piece of production admin, take it off the associates and the technologists, and put the numbers on the table before we suggest anything else.
Common questions from Lothian architecture practices
What kind of AI tools do you actually use?
Whatever fits the job. We are tool-agnostic and we do not resell anything, so nothing gets recommended because a vendor is paying us to push it. For architecture practices it usually ends up being document extraction over past submissions and proposals, workflow platforms like Make or n8n for the plumbing between systems, bespoke wrappers around Claude or GPT for the language-heavy work, and integrations with Revit, ArchiCAD, BIM 360 and whatever project admin software you already run. We do not replace software you are already paying for.
Is this going to touch the design itself?
No. We stay off the design side of the practice on purpose. Partners keep the design judgement. Associates keep the planning calls. Technologists keep the Revit standards. What we build sits around the design, on the production paperwork that was already getting done on a Friday night. Proposals, planning statements, drawing registers, specifications. The creative work of the practice is not ours to touch.
Is it safe to use AI with client project data?
Yes, when it is set up properly. We only use deployment patterns where your project data stays under your own control and is never used to train an external model. Lothian practices handling Historic Environment Scotland consent work and social housing commissions carry sensitive client data. We walk you through exactly what the data flow looks like for each specific tool in the free report rather than asking you to take our word for it.
How long does a typical project take?
The first piece of work normally runs two to six weeks, from the first conversation to something actually running inside your practice. We keep the first project small on purpose so you see a result quickly and can decide for yourself whether we are worth having back for the next one. Bigger work comes later, once trust has been earned and the first piece has paid for itself.
Will this replace our technologists or our associates?
No. Every practice we have worked with has ended up with the same team doing more of the architecture they came into the profession to do and less of the production paperwork they did not. The goal is to take the Friday evening assembly off the associates and the technologists, not to shrink the practice. Good technologists are hard enough to hold on to in practices of this size without anyone losing them deliberately.
Run an architecture practice in Lothian?
Fifteen minutes from you, and a detailed written report back within twenty-four hours. No sales call required.