Introducing Architecture Studio

The problem

Architects use dozens of disconnected tools and data sources across a single project. Site research means pulling from NOAA, Census, MTA, and FEMA. Due diligence in New York means checking six separate city databases. Space programming means juggling IBC tables, workplace benchmarks, and client requirements in a spreadsheet. Specifications mean reformatting the same information into CSI divisions. Materials research means copy-pasting specs from manufacturer websites into yet another spreadsheet.

Each of these tasks has its own portal, its own data format, and its own manual workflow. A thorough site analysis takes days. A property check takes an hour. An FF&E schedule takes weeks of back-and-forth with reps.

We’ve been building Claude skills to automate these workflows one at a time — a skill for zoning analysis, a skill for EPD parsing, a skill for product research. That worked when we had five skills. At thirty-six, it stopped scaling. Users had to know which skill to call, which plugin it lived in, and what arguments it needed. The tools were powerful individually but disconnected as a system.

What we built

Architecture Studio is the system that connects them.

It’s an open-source plugin for Claude — the AI assistant by Anthropic — that teaches it architecture-specific workflows. One entry point (/studio), seven autonomous agents, thirty-six skills, and a set of rules that govern every output.

Architecture Studio
├── /studio                              ← entry point
│
├── agents/
│   ├── site-planner                     4 skills · site research + synthesis
│   ├── nyc-zoning-expert                9 skills · property records + zoning + 3D
│   ├── workplace-strategist             2 skills · occupancy + programming
│   ├── product-and-materials-researcher 5 skills · find, extract, tag
│   ├── ffe-designer                     6 skills · schedule, QA, export
│   ├── sustainability-specialist        4 skills · EPDs, GWP, LEED
│   └── brand-manager                    2 skills · decks + palettes
│
├── plugins/                             9 plugins · 38 skills
├── rules/                               6 rules
└── hooks/                               3 hooks

Type /studio followed by what you need. The router figures out the rest.

/studio I need a space program for 200 people, 3 days hybrid
/studio find me a task chair, mesh back, under $800
/studio check the zoning on 123 Main St, Brooklyn
/studio parse this EPD

Five layers, one system

Architecture Studio has five layers. Each does one thing.

1. The router

/studio is the entry point. Describe your task in plain language — the router classifies your intent and hands off to the right agent or skill. If it’s ambiguous, it asks one clarifying question. If you already know what you want, call any skill directly by name.

2. Agents

Agents are autonomous specialists. Each one orchestrates multiple skills, chooses a path through the workflow, and exercises judgment. They’re not fixed pipelines — they assess your input and decide what to do.

Agent	What it does
Site Planner	Runs all site research in parallel — climate, transit, demographics, history — and synthesizes a unified brief
NYC Zoning Expert	Full property and zoning analysis — due diligence across six city databases, buildable envelope, interactive 3D visualization
Workplace Strategist	Translates headcount and work style into a space program — occupancy compliance, zone allocation, room schedules
Product & Materials Researcher	Finds products from a brief, extracts specs from URLs and PDFs, tags and classifies, finds alternatives
FF&E Designer	Builds clean schedules from messy inputs, composes room packages, runs QA, exports to dealer formats
Sustainability Specialist	Evaluates environmental impact — finds EPDs, compares embodied carbon, checks LEED eligibility, writes spec thresholds
Brand Manager	Owns visual identity — builds slide decks, creates color palettes, QAs deliverables for presentation readiness

Each agent knows when to hand off to another. The Site Planner suggests the NYC Zoning Expert for entitlements. The Workplace Strategist suggests the Product & Materials Researcher for furniture. The chain is natural — it follows the project lifecycle.

3. Skills

Skills are the workers. Each one does a single thing well — query the PLUTO database, calculate IBC occupancy loads, search for EPDs, extract specs from a PDF. There are thirty-six of them, grouped into nine plugins by project phase:

• Due Diligence — NYC landmarks, permits, violations, ownership, variances
• Site Planning — climate, transit, demographics, neighborhood history
• Zoning — NYC envelope analysis, Uruguay lot analysis, 3D visualization
• Programming — occupancy loads, workplace strategy
• Specifications — CSI outline specs from a materials list
• Sustainability — EPD parsing, research, comparison, spec thresholds
• Materials Research — product search, spec extraction, cleanup, scheduling, image processing
• Presentations — slide decks, color palettes

You can call any skill directly (/epd-parser, /zoning-analysis-nyc) or let an agent orchestrate them for you.

4. Rules

Six rules govern every output — units and measurements, code citations, professional disclaimers, CSI formatting, terminology, and output structure. They’re loaded automatically. When a skill calculates an occupancy load, the rules ensure it cites IBC 2021 §1004.5 (not just “IBC”), uses imperial units with metric in parentheses, and includes a professional disclaimer. No skill has to implement these conventions individually.

5. Hooks

Three event-driven automations that run during Claude Code sessions. One checks that regulatory outputs include a professional disclaimer. One stamps markdown reports with metadata. One flags malformed CSI section numbers before a commit. They’re opt-in — copy the config into your settings to activate.

Why agents, not just skills

We started with skills only. A user would type /site-due-diligence-nyc 123 Main St and get five reports run in sequence — environmental, mobility, demographics, history, zoning. It worked, but it was rigid. The command always ran five skills in the same order. If you only needed zoning, you still got the full pipeline. If the zoning results suggested a landmark issue, nobody flagged it automatically.

Agents solve this. The Site Planner decides whether to run all four research skills or just the ones you need. The NYC Zoning Expert connects the dots — if there’s an active ECB violation and a pending DOB application, it flags the conflict. The Workplace Strategist pushes back if your headcount doesn’t fit the square footage. They exercise judgment because the agent files contain decision rules, not just step sequences.

The old commands were pipelines. Agents are consultants.

Design decisions

A few choices that shaped the architecture.

Domain-specific skills, not general-purpose ones. Architecture Studio’s skills are built for AEC workflows — zoning envelope calculations, IBC occupancy loads, EPD parsing, FF&E schedule formatting. They encode the domain knowledge that makes them useful without requiring the user to provide it.

Modular installation. Not every architect needs every skill. A structural engineer installs Specifications and nothing else. A workplace strategist installs Programming. A sustainability consultant installs the EPD plugin. You pick what you need — the plugin system lets teams install only the tools relevant to their role.

Skills that do the work. Each skill has real tool permissions, API calls, data files, and multi-step workflows. They’re not reference documents — they’re workers. Agents orchestrate and synthesize across skills, but the skills themselves are heavy and self-contained.

Bundled reference data. Architecture Studio ships with the data the skills need — NYC Zoning Resolution chapters, IBC occupancy load factors, workplace benchmarks, Uruguay zoning regulations. The skills don’t just describe how to look something up — they contain the reference material. No external subscriptions or API keys required for public data.

Get started

Follow the step-by-step installation guide to set up Architecture Studio in Claude Desktop or Claude Code — includes screenshots and troubleshooting.

The full source is on GitHub. MIT licensed. Contributions welcome.

Distributing to a team? See Distributing Skills to Teams.

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Architecture Studio is built by ALPA — research, strategy, and technology for the built environment.