Session Follow-Up

Delivering quality continuing education to AIA | DC was a great privilege. As a part of the engagement, we offer these resources for you to continue your AI exploration and journey.

"Architecture Without Architects" Slide Deck

TAKE IT WITH YOU. Study it. Implement it. Take the AIA Firm Toolkit back to your office and start there. It was crafted by fellow architects on the AIA AI Task Force that was created as a result of the AIA Strategic Council's 2024 Annual Meeting Resolution on AI (with guidance from the AIA Board of Directors AI Advisory, chaired by Amber).

How Did We Do?

REFINEMENT SHARPENS US. When we hear from you, we learn your most granular needs and grow our knowledge base. We also love hearing accolades and appreciate the encouragement to keep going on this journey with and FOR you.

Interested in speaking engagements or workshops?

EDUCATION IS EVERYTHING. We offer everything from zoom talks and lunch-n-learns to full 2-day retreats. See what participants are saying about how accelerating their current throughput has amplified not only their throughput but also their enthusiasm for work.

Architectural Research Centers Consortium

3/3 ABSTRACTS ACCEPTED. Help Amber deliver by participating in a confidential 30-minute interview. Results in paper acknowledgement (November 2026) and potential paper presentation (April 2027).

Need a Fractional Chief AI Executive or Kick-Start?

EXPLORE LUNA'S SERVICES. Engagement starting at just $250 ranging up to full agentic team development and staff implementation strategy, all based on MIT xPro frameworks and Luna's custom AI as Accelerant curriculum.


Questions right now? Enzo (our agentic Chief-of-Staff) is waiting in the pink conversational bubble at the bottom right of your screen. Say hello and ask him some questions! You'll see how Luna automates customer service 24/7 and how we can build similar satisfying features for your firm as well.

Prefer a low-key looksie before committing?

JOIN THE THRESHOLD COMMUNITY. It's free to join, comes with a scalable PDF 2027 planning calendar, and brings insight into your inbox every week. Additional paid tiers are available for more custom resources and insights from the AEC industry. Learn along with us! This industry is in constant flux. Knowledge is power.

Learn more about Amber.

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY. From Mississippi farm girl to national speaker and AI/AEC international researcher. It's been a crazy fun ride and my hope is that you'll see how your AI future can likewise move mountains.

Session Details:

Architecture Without Architects

When AI Reaches the Client First


DesignDC 2026 · Hosted by AIA DC

Tuesday, October 27, 2026 · 2:10pm ET

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library · Washington, DC


The profession's conversation about AI has focused almost entirely on how architects can use these tools. This session asks the more urgent question:


What happens when the tools reach the client first, and the client decides the architect is optional?


Two shifts make it immediate: research now finds AI completing 50 to 65 percent of text-based professional tasks at a minimally acceptable standard, including space planning, specification writing, code research, and permit documents, and the U.S. Department of Education's 2025 reclassification of the architecture degree as non-professional, effective July 2026, signals deprofessionalization at the federal level. Where residential work requires no licensed oversight, encroachment is already operational, with contractors and design-build firms marketing AI-enabled design directly to homeowners.


Lombardo presents findings from an unusual research position: a practitioner-researcher and AI educator designing a personal residence as an educated, unlicensed designer, deliberately testing the limits of AI-augmented lay practice using only consumer tools. The case study documents what AI-augmented laypeople can actually produce, where the absence of professional training creates risk AI cannot mitigate, and what that boundary reveals about the profession's irreplaceable contribution.


Because the subject arrives wrapped in dread, the session opens with ten minutes on the staged approach Lombardo uses to help firms and nonprofits integrate AI safely and ethically, so the room examines the evidence from clarity rather than alarm. The second half is a structured discussion: what should licensure advocacy, service design, and public messaging look like when the capability boundary keeps moving?


Attendees leave with a QR-linked resource set containing the evidence base and a discussion guide for their own firms. The RIBA AI Report 2025 finds AI tools already enabling non-professionals to generate domestic plans without oversight; this session examines that jurisdictional shift in the city where jurisdiction is made.


Details

  • DesignDC 2026: Architecture as a Tool for Change, hosted by AIA DC.
  • Two days: sessions and keynote October 27, building tours across DC October 28.
  • Up to 10 CEUs.
  • Early Bird registration through September 18, 2026.
  • Register here.>


Want this session for your AIA component, chapter, or firm?

Schedule a Discovery Call > to get details.