Idil Zeynep Tonguc is an architect, designer, and researcher based in Istanbul, and the founder of IZÉ STUDIO. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute in New York and a Master in Business Design from Domus Academy in Milan, where she also gained professional experience in architecture and design. She is currently a PhD candidate in Architectural Design Computing at Istanbul Technical University, where her research focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence, computational design, BIM, and digital building-permit processes. Her doctoral research, CODE-COMPANION, investigates an AI-assisted framework for automated building-code compliance checking and explainable digital permitting workflows, combining AI-assisted rule development with deterministic BIM-based evaluation. Through both her academic research and professional practice at IZÉ STUDIO, she explores how emerging technologies, computation, materiality, and design thinking can inform new approaches to architectural practice and the built environment.

CODE-COMPANION: A Cross-Platform AI-Assisted Framework for Real-Time BIM Compliance Checking and Digital Building Permit Workflows                                                                 Abstract: Building permit approval remains one of the most time-consuming and inconsistent processes in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, requiring designers and municipal reviewers to manually interpret planning regulations and building codes. This paper presents CODE-COMPANION, an AI-assisted computational framework that transforms natural-language regulations into structured, machine-readable rules and evaluates them deterministically within Building Information Modeling (BIM) environments. The framework formalizes selected regulatory requirements as deterministic computable rules and connects these rules to geometric and parametric information derived from the architectural model. The checking workflow was initially prototyped in Rhino/Grasshopper and subsequently implemented in Autodesk Revit using Python and pyRevit to provide interactive design-time compliance feedback. Validation was conducted using a real-world case study in Kadikoy, Istanbul, where two alternative building designs were assessed under identical parcel-specific regulations. The prototype successfully identified compliance violations, highlighted non-compliant elements within the 3D model, and generated explainable pass/fail results reporting the evaluated rule, measured value, and governing threshold. By providing continuous, real-time regulatory feedback during design, the framework transforms compliance checking from a post-design verification task into a proactive design-support process, enabling architects to resolve issues early, evaluate design alternatives more efficiently, reduce redesign iterations, shorten permitting time, and make more informed decisions. The results demonstrate that a substantial proportion of deterministic permit regulations can be evaluated automatically while discretionary regulations remain under human judgement.