"Would architecture become one homogenous blob of probabilities — a statistically monotonous greyness supercharged by an algorithm that squeezes out any last humane quality in pursuit of a slick efficiency?"
— Terry Cheng, Architecture Now, reflecting on DigiComm25
Terry Cheng's essay Working with Technology, published in Architecture New Zealand after attending DigiComm25 in Auckland, is the kind of piece that lands differently depending on where you sit in the industry. As someone working daily inside Revit models, writing Dynamo scripts, and thinking about how AI might reshape the way we document and analyse buildings in Korea, I found it both unsettling and strangely reassuring.
This post is my response — a BIM practitioner's reading of what Cheng observed, filtered through the realities of practice in a different part of the world.
Four Tensions the Article Surfaces
DigiComm25 wasn't a cheerleading event for technology. It was, as Cheng describes it, "a challenge to the status quo." The conversations happening in New Zealand reflect debates we're having everywhere — including in Korean AEC practice, where BIM mandates are expanding fast but the readiness gap is very real.
Tension 01
Global Tools, Local Conditions
Architects everywhere draw from the same software stack — yet financial viability of BIM for small projects remains a legitimate local concern.
Tension 02
AI's Creative Promise vs. Environmental Cost
LLMs and generative design offer real productivity gains, but data centre energy use and water consumption demand honest accounting.
Tension 03
Efficiency vs. Humanity
The risk that algorithmic optimisation hollows out the imaginative, humane qualities that define good architecture — and good architects.
Tension 04
Data Ownership & Agency
As AI pipelines grow, who controls the data that feeds them? The question of intellectual property and creative agency becomes architectural.
On BIM: The Promise Is Real, the Readiness Gap Is Realer
Cheng notes that DigiComm25 speakers championed BIM as a pathway to "clear design communication" and "better-coordinated buildings" through a single source of truth. The example from Nate Helbach of Neutral — mass timber multistorey housing delivered through prefabrication and BIM — represents exactly the kind of integrated workflow that those of us doing Revit-based practice aspire toward.
In Aotearoa, there were questions concerning the financial viability of BIM for small-scale projects. Others hoped that, as towns and cities mature, so too would the uptake of appropriate tools that pay off in the long term.
— DigiComm25 round-table, as reported by Terry Cheng
This mirrors almost exactly the conversation in South Korea right now. The government has mandated BIM on public projects of 50 billion KRW or more since 2026, with full expansion to all public works by 2030. The policy direction is unambiguous. But the implementation gap — particularly for mid-size and smaller firms, and for client-side organisations without strong BIM management capability — is a known challenge. The mandate exists; the readiness is patchy.
What Cheng doesn't explicitly say, but implies, is that BIM adoption isn't primarily a software problem. It's a cultural and economic one. When a firm's margin is thin and a project timeline is aggressive, the upfront investment in a well-structured BIM model is hard to justify to a client who doesn't yet understand what they'd get from it.
· · ·
On AI: Genuinely Useful, Genuinely Concerning
The article captures a genuine split in the room at DigiComm25. Shaolei Ren from UC Riverside brought sobering data on AI's environmental footprint — carbon emissions from training and inference, the water cost of cooling data centres. This is the side of the conversation that the technology industry often buries in footnotes.
On the other side, Justin Flitter of AI New Zealand argued for large language models as tools that "empower people to do more meaningful work and remain competitive in an increasingly automated field." Both are true simultaneously, which is what makes the current moment uncomfortable.
My perspective — as a practitioner using AI daily
I use Claude and other AI tools regularly in my workflow: for parsing building code text, structuring site analysis reports, scripting Dynamo nodes, and drafting documentation. The productivity gain is real and not trivial. A task that once took an afternoon can now be structured in an hour.
But Cheng's question — "what room is left for the interest of the imaginative individual?" — sits with me. When I use an LLM to draft a site analysis framework, I'm not replacing judgment; I'm offloading structure so I can apply judgment faster. The risk is when that distinction blurs — when the scaffolding becomes the building.
The environmental point from Ren is one I now think about more consciously. Each prompt has a cost. Using AI thoughtfully, not reflexively, seems like the responsible position.
On Connectedness: Distance Is No Longer an Excuse
One of the more philosophically interesting threads in Cheng's essay is about geography and isolation. New Zealand, as an island nation, once had a kind of built-in insulation from global pressures — in practice, in culture, in architecture. Cheng argues that this is no longer the case: "Being far, far away isn't so isolating." The same software, the same debates, the same AI tools, the same BIM mandates are arriving everywhere at roughly the same time.
Korea sits at the opposite end of that spectrum — a highly connected, technology-first society where digital adoption in construction has been policy-driven for over a decade. Yet even here, the practical implementation of BIM at the project level is uneven, and the questions about AI's role in creative and technical work are just as open. Connectedness means sharing the same tools and the same anxieties.
The Mātātahi Moment: What Young Professionals Said
The detail I keep returning to in Cheng's essay is the closing note about the mātātahi (young professionals) workshop at DigiComm25. Their message, as summarised by Cheng, was this:
"We value the wisdom of a multigenerational industry. We want to do good for the world."
— Young professionals at DigiComm25, as reported in Architecture New Zealand
This is not naïve. It's a clarification of what technology should serve. The tools — BIM, AI, digital twins, parametric systems — are means, not ends. The end is still architecture: buildings that serve people, that respond to place, that endure with grace, and that don't accelerate the environmental crises we're all trying to navigate.
Practical Takeaways for AEC Practitioners
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1
BIM viability is a business model question as much as a technical one. Until clients understand and value the outputs of a well-executed BIM process, the investment calculus won't shift. Advocacy is part of the job.
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2
AI is most valuable when it amplifies judgment, not replaces it. Use it to remove low-value cognitive load — formatting, cross-referencing, structure — so that the high-value work (design intent, client dialogue, contextual reasoning) gets more of your attention.
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3
Environmental cost of AI is real. Run heavier AI tasks intentionally, not habitually. Batch prompts. Use smaller, faster models where appropriate. Know the difference between a quick check and a full reasoning chain.
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4
Data ownership matters — now. As AI pipelines become embedded in practice, the question of who owns project data, design outputs, and model geometry will become a contractual and ethical issue. Get ahead of it.
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5
The multigenerational transmission of craft knowledge is non-negotiable. Young practitioners bring digital fluency; experienced practitioners bring contextual judgment. Neither alone is sufficient. The industry should be building structures that allow both to co-exist and exchange.
Cheng closes his essay "cautiously optimistic, if not hopeful." That's exactly where I land too. The tools are extraordinary. The questions they raise are hard. The future is, as he says, hard to tell.
But the work itself — making buildings, serving clients, shaping places — hasn't changed in its fundamental orientation. What changes is the responsibility that comes with more powerful instruments. Use them well.
#BIM
#Architecture
#AI in AEC
#DigiComm25
#Digital Twin
#Revit
#Sustainability
#AEC Technology
#Architectural Practice
Source article: Terry Cheng, "Working with Technology,"
Architecture New Zealand, Issue 4, July 2025 — published via
Architecture Now. This post represents the author's personal commentary and perspective on the themes raised in that article.
