Can AI submit your planning application? Sort of.
I gave Astra an address and nothing else. It dug out an old planning application for a rear extension on my own house, built a 3D model in Blender, modelled a mansard, then sheeted up drawings at 1:100. I never opened any drawing software.
Oliver Lowrie
London needs to build. But will the new plan deliver?
Prop Views has become a podcast. For the first episode, Nick Cuff and Oli Lowrie put the draft London Plan to Dominic Grace, and got an answer about defibrillators.
25,000 sites, 60-week planning applications, and no development school
Charlie Caswell and Adam Dainow trained as architects and became developers. Their claim is that they do more pure design now than they ever did in practice.
Data + Analysis
The 1.5 million target, in one number
England built 203,000 homes in the twelve months to June, against the 300,000 a year needed to reach 1.5 million by July 2029. The housing secretary now puts the odds at “slim”.
ViabilityCity Hall tested its own plan. Most schemes failed.
Of 989 development scenarios modelled for the draft London Plan, 23 per cent were viable. The number comes from City Hall's own testing, not from a developer lobby.
Latest Podcast
Urban Forecast · 10 Aug 2026AIThe nuclear bomb moment for BIM software
Architectural software is a $6bn industry and 35 per cent of it goes to Autodesk. The CEO of That Open Company thinks that position just became a lot less safe. Five weeks later, Autodesk confirmed Revit's replacement.
Guest: Antonio Gonzalez Viegas
News
George Clarke: “We shouldn’t force people to use architects”
The Urban Forecast
Autodesk confirms Forma will replace Revit “over time”
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 Lowrie
You can now apply to join the Breakfast Club. Every briefing stays invite only.
Twenty people, eight times a year, Chatham House rule. One keynote, then a proper argument over breakfast.Apply to join · Next: 27 Sep, Leeds · 13 Oct, London
