Can AI submit your planning application? Sort of.

Here are my experiments with ChatGPT's new Astra.

I'll leave it to Tim Fu and Olly Thomas to show the beautifully seductive 3D models, renders and diagrams that Astra can create when you plug it into Revit, Grasshopper and Rhino.

I wanted something totally mundane. A mansard on my house. And I wanted to see what it could do if I didn't connect it to any CAD or drafting software at all.

All I gave it was the address.

It looked up an old planning application for a rear extension on the property. Built a 3D model of the existing house in Blender. Then modelled the new mansard.

Here's the crazy bit. I can't use Blender. Couldn't even rotate the view.

So I went back into Astra and told it I wanted sheeted-up drawings at 1:100, ready to submit for planning.

They aren't perfect. But they aren't bad. One round of red pen and these would be ok to submit. And I never opened any drawing software. I don't even know what Astra used to sheet up the 2D CAD from the Blender model. It didn't bother telling me.

When we started the business 12 years ago, this was the type of project we worked on. I really struggle to see how architects will keep working on these the same way. The design process is 5 prompts and a pound of tokens.

I never supported protection of function before. I'm shifting my position on it very fast.

What the comments taught me

That post got a lot of comments. Here's what I took from them.

The red pen is doing more work than people want to admit. Plenty of people said the value now sits in judgement, code, performance, standing behind the drawings. Fair. My 12 years let me say “one round of red pen and it's ready.” That is the valuable bit. But if the drawings cost a coffee, someone asked, what's left of a £5k planning fee once you've kept £500 for compliance checking? That question is not going away.

A few people said it isn't design at all. Just a novelty. AutoCAD was going to kill the drafter too. I get that. These are planning drawings, not building regs, not construction issues. If I thought they were up to scratch for that, I'd be thrilled. I don't. Yet. And “yet” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because AI is as bad as it will ever be today, and this was basically a one-shot attempt.

The protection conversation got sharper in the replies. Not “only architects may draw.” More like: if you're offering building design services, hold proper PI. Let insurers underwrite competency. Some stamps for planning and building regs, the way they do in the US. Anyone can put in a planning app here. PD defaults to the client unless they appoint someone. We don't protect the production process. We might need to protect the stamp.

Open tools matter more than people notice. This ran on Blender in the background. Free. No licence wall. No “learn AutoCAD first.” That is what made it feel different from every CAD revolution before it.

And the bit that actually scared me most, which came out in the thread: the competition is not another architect with better software. It is some guy on Instagram who says he can submit your planning app for you. Non-architects will get Astra before they ever get AutoCAD. Consumers will not know the difference between someone qualified to check properly and someone who just knows how to prompt.

When we started, a mansard was a job. Now it is an address and a few prompts. I care about the profession and its legacy. I also think we have a problem here.

We need competent people reviewing and managing what comes out of these tools. When it's aesthetics, that matters. When it's safety, it's vital. My fear is the market will buy the drawings long before it buys the distinction.

One last thing, from the drawing itself

Read the small print on the sheet and Astra is honest about what it did not do. No as-built scan undertaken. No measured survey. No site or legal boundary survey. Neighbours shown as assumed mirrored copies. Window and cornice sizes require verification. The titleblock still says REVIEW.

The tool told me exactly where the judgement still has to come from. The question is whether the next person along reads that panel.