LCI Lean in Design Forum Keynote Speaker Spotlight: An Interview with Phil Bernstein, FAIA

We were happy to speak with Phil Bernstein, Deputy Dean and Professor, Adjunct at the Yale School of Architecture, author of Machine Learning: Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence—and one of the 2025 LCI Lean in Design Forum keynote speakers!

Enjoy this sneak peek of Phil’s outlook on where design-build AI solutions are headed. Don’t miss his illuminating keynote address at the 2025 Lean in Design Forum, April 30-May 1 in Chicago.

Phil brings diverse experience to his outlook on AI in design.

Phil, who has taught at the Yale School of Architecture since 1988, is a former vice president at Autodesk, where he was responsible for the company’s building information modeling (BIM) strategy, including the development of Autodesk’s Revit software. He’s now full time at Yale serving as the deputy dean and a professor teaching courses and doing research in business practice, supply chain ethics, and technology, most recently focusing on artificial intelligence.

Phil’s keynote address will explore the evolution of artificial intelligence technology and cover its potential relationship to Lean principles and strategies.

He’s working on the second edition of his book, Machine Learning: Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

We spoke with Phil about his book, Machine Learning: Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He shared, “I wrote it in 2020. The pandemic delayed the writing process. The good news was that I was delayed by a year, and a lot of stuff happened that year. The bad news was I had about three months to write the book instead of 14!” He continued, “I hadn’t considered about putting my thoughts down on the topic, so the book was a good opportunity to systematically think through everything. Writing for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), I couldn’t stay in an American practice comfort zone and had to reframe things for both British and American lenses, which was a helpful approach.”

In discussing the second edition, he offered, “If you wrote an AI book in 2021 and it came out in 2022, by the time the ink is dry, it’s already obsolete. The second edition is happening for two reasons: first, while the basic argument in the book still works–though the examples are out of date, I would frame the argument slightly differently based on what I know about the technology today and where it’s going. It’s an interesting opportunity to adjust and reflect upon what I would do differently for each chapter. It will have a new introduction and epilogue for each chapter with new thoughts and arguments. Second, and this is surprising for an obscure academic text, it’s selling better, and the original 5,000 copies are almost sold out.”

“It will be interesting for me to critique my work and move it forward, ” Phil noted.

He finds inspiration from his students, practitioners, and more.

We asked Phil where he finds inspiration for his work. He shared that, “You never know when inspiration will strike. I live in an academic environment and get to talk to students, and a lot are really amazing. Their work is interesting, and they keep us all on our toes here. I still talk to a lot of practitioners to keep an eye on what’s going on. Sometimes I sit out by the water and try not to think about anything and see what pops into my head. Sometimes I’m waiting to receive a serve on the tennis court, and some new thought will come.

We just had a weekend symposium on the future of sustainable materials in the environment. Tonight is the career fair with 35 firms interviewing our students, and I’m taking 55 architects out to dinner tonight. Here at the School of Architecture there’s always a lot of amazing stuff going on to keep me engaged.”

Phil will discuss where he thinks design-build AI solutions are headed—and managing existential angst.

Phil spoke at the 2023 Lean in Design Forum and plans to elaborate on how AI solutions are evolving in the design-build industry. He noted, “Last time, I tried to contextualize what’s happening but now I have a more refined thesis about what I think the trajectory of industry-specific AI solutions will look like and what the challenges are moving from large-scale commercial foundation models into things that are truly useful for us in the building industry. I’ll talk about where I think that’s going and where the opportunities and hurdles might be.”

He added, “I also want to talk about managing existential angst. I perceive in my research conversations and during coffee after giving talks that there is a huge disconnect between what the technology can do and the degree of extreme anxiety that architects and engineers, and to a lesser extent builders, have about what the technology is going to do. I think we should address that and have a realistic understanding of what the possibilities are and where the potential threats are.

It will be a long time before your sheetrock contractor is replaced by an army of robots. But if you’re a structural engineer, a lot of the work you do is relatively straightforward to automate. So what does that mean for your business? What are the leading companies, like Thornton Tomasetti and Arup, doing about that? What are they leveraging? What lessons does that give us for the rest of the industry?”

He hopes attendees gain critical skills to understand what’s happening with AI at this moment in time.

Phil shared that he hopes attendees leave this conversation with a more acute set of critical skills to look at what’s happening with artificial intelligence now.

He shared some examples: “For at least the past two years, there’s been an attorney in Minneapolis who holds a round table for 40-50 clients and asked me to talk about AI. Two weeks ago, I did it for the second time. All anyone wanted to talk about was copyright issues. Are you stealing my ideas with my AI? What if I accidentally steal an idea by using AI? This is low threshold stuff, given the possibilities and the existential worries.

I was recently in Florida to give a talk with Rob Otani, the head AI researcher for Thornton Tomasetti, to 200 fellows of the American College of Construction Lawyers. So, it was one engineer, one architect, and 200 lawyers! Before we started the Q and A, I asked attendees to raise their hands if their clients have inquired of their services for anything related to billable AI work. Not “messing around with AI” work, not marketing, but billable AI work. Two hands went up—so about 1% of the audience.

When you survey people, 75% say they are using AI for something, but for what? The measurement of real use I use is billable.”

He noted that AI “is a large firm thing right now.”

Given the state of artificial intelligence right now, Phil offered that, “AI is a large firm thing right now. Some are doing interesting experimentation with dedicated research and lots of data. The heavy lifting is being done by the large firms, like Thornton Tomasetti, Gensler, WATG, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.”

Lean AI has the potential to give designers more time to design.

Phil noted that “Lean is an outcome-based approach. This technology has incredible possibilities to do two things—drive an outcome-based approach and for designers, make them better designers, by giving them more time to design. I would like to see Lean AI creating frames of reference for designers to make it easier for them to do a better job.

One question I ask here is in my professional practice class is “how long does it take to have a good idea? You sell time for money. If you can’t figure that out, how do you set a fee or schedule?” For improving that constrained space of time and money in which you need to come up with a good idea, I’m all in favor of anything that will improves our ability to predict outcomes, and this is what AI will help with if we are careful and intentional about it.”

Final thought: Don’t miss taking an architectural boat tour in Chicago.

Phil told us that he’s looking forward to the Lean in Design Forum and to visiting Chicago. He offered, “I’m an architect. I like Chicago. I enjoy the architectural boat tour run by the Chicago Art Foundation docents. That’s not to be missed.”

Learn more from Phil in person this spring.

We hope you’re excited to learn more from Phil during his inspiring and actionable keynote address!