
What does the new RIBA President think about AI in architecture? We found out.
Jay Morton, director at Bell Phillips Architects, has been elected the next RIBA President. She wants the profession to keep humans in control of design decisions as AI takes more control of process, and she intends to use the presidency as a loud platform to make that case. "AI can scour through all the test results," she said, "but when do you need the doctors to make the decision?... it should be the same for architecture."
The Urban Forecast
The housing delivery gap inside the NPPF's Green Belt numbers
The Draft London Plan's own viability evidence shows current development values cannot support NPPF and plan policy requirements, putting a meaningful share of its headline housing number in doubt.

What AI companies want from buildings: lessons from Oxford North
An AI lab can start with a single person and a laptop. Then comes the power, the cooling, the data infrastructure and the need to grow fast. Oxford North's Simon Ruck and Fletcher Priest's Jonathan Kendall explain what that means for buildings and districts.
Data + Analysis
Thirty years of falling pay: architecture's quiet real-terms decline
A mid-career architect earned the equivalent of £67,000 in 1999. Today the same role pays £48,500. According to RIBA, the profession has lost 30% of its real purchasing power in thirty years.
PracticeAI will cause job losses for architects. Or maybe the opposite, if Fosters are the model.
Everyone says AI means job losses for architects. The top of this year's AJ100 points the other way. Foster + Partners are betting harder on AI than anyone, and they are hiring.
Latest Podcast
PodcastPodcast: the real cost of building London's skyline
Steve Watts has helped deliver some of London's most complex tall buildings, including The Shard. In this episode, he explains why so many towers are stalled, and what it will take to get them moving.
News

We spent £20,000 a year on Adobe. This year we are not renewing.
Oliver Lowrie
UK passes 250,000 certified heat pump installations
The Urban Forecast
Autodesk buys MaintainX for $3.6bn, its biggest deal ever
The Urban Forecast
Next BE:AI Supper Club: Physical AI + Robotics, 21 July
The Urban ForecastOpinion + Roundtable
Opinion: co-living broke through in planning. Now it has to stack up.
Planning acceptance of co-living is no longer the battle. Getting schemes built, funded and run well is. The industry needs to answer three harder tests before consented projects become real homes.
Oliver LowrieBreakfast ClubBreakfast Club Briefings partners with Marrons
The Breakfast Club Briefings are a space where politicians, planners, developers and consultants come together to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the industry, and form a consensus on what we want from the cities of the future.The Urban Forecast


