Architectural Journalism Portfolio: Raveena Bathija

Architecture in the era of Artificial Intelligence…..

A.I. IN ARCHI-TECTURE

Many of the rather smarter people alive today, the likes of Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk, have been continuously warning us about the possible mayhem and destruction that will eventually happen due to A.I. robots taking over the world. However, before we reach what seems to be our inevitable doom, there’s bound to be a friendly period of A.I. helping our society.

But what is Artificial Intelligence?

Simply put, A.I. (short for Artificial Intelligence) is the intelligence displayed by machines and software. Digital technology and A.I. is growing at an exponential rate. As “Moore’s law” explains, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years. This means that in the future, a computer can design a better one that can design a better one and so on.

A.I. Systems in Architecture

The recent influx and growth of machine learning and artificial intelligence rises questions about the way in which creative processes evolve and develop through technology. Systems like DALL- E, DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are AI programs trained to generate images from text descriptions using a dataset of text-image pairs. The diverse setof capabilities includes creating anthropomorphized versions of animals and objects, combining unrelated concepts in plausible ways, and applying transformations to existing images.

These are the four initial results generated by Midjourney bots based on the prompt: “/imagine A contemporary, sustainable

McDonald’s restaurant made of glass with golden arches reflecting on a lake.” . Image © Leilah Stone / Midjourney AI via Metropolis

Some researchers are calling these “Artificial serendipity”, systems that maximize the opportunity for serendipity, opening up the range of creative capabilities beyond the classical methods. Architects are already experimenting with these tools to explore complex issues like urban planning and the possibilities of existing spaces. Others are combining architectural keywords with contemporary design cliches, references to pop culture and various art styles to design buildings or simply explore the nature of design trends and technology. A perfect example of using A.I. to solve problems that would take days for an architect, is the space syntax software ‘depthmapX’ by The Bartlett at UCI. It uses A.I. to analyse the spatial network on many levels without the need of going on site.

For the time being, it appears that to meet creative artists’ needs, it will be necessary to continue stacking several AIs, much like traditional software workflows. But as these tools expand, it will be fascinating to see how they interact and how fresh approaches to creative exploration take shape.

SELF GENERATED EXAMPLES USING MIDJOURNEY