RetroFitIQ

Inspiration

Atlanta has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 59% by 2030 and reaching Net Zero by 2050. However, many of the city's buildings were built before modern energy standards and require significant upgrades. We discovered that building permit reviews and retrofit planning often require digging through decades of historical records, creating costly delays. We wanted to use AI to unlock this information and accelerate sustainable building modernization.

What it does

RetrospectIQ analyzes historical building permits and extracts critical information about existing building systems, including HVAC, electrical, and structural components. The platform helps contractors, building owners, and city reviewers understand a building's history, identify retrofit opportunities, and streamline the permit approval process for energy-efficient upgrades.

How we built it

We built a web application using Next.js and TypeScript for the frontend and backend. AI-powered document processing extracts and structures information from historical permit records. The platform organizes permit data into searchable building profiles and generates actionable insights for retrofit planning and permit review.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was designing a system capable of interpreting highly variable historical permit documents. We also had to balance technical complexity with creating a user experience that would be intuitive for contractors, building owners, and city officials.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of creating a solution that addresses a real sustainability challenge while improving government and construction workflows. We successfully demonstrated how AI can transform decades of unstructured permit data into useful insights that support faster, smarter building retrofits.

What we learned

We learned how critical historical data is to infrastructure modernization and how difficult it can be to access and utilize that information effectively. We also gained valuable experience designing AI-assisted workflows for highly regulated industries.

What's next for RetrospectIQ

Our next step is integrating real municipal permit databases, expanding support for additional building document types, and generating automated retrofit recommendations based on energy codes and sustainability standards. Long-term, we envision RetrospectIQ becoming a platform that helps cities nationwide accelerate their path toward Net Zero emissions.