AI is pushing the limits of the physical world

Technology has long enabled architecture to push the limits of form and function. As early as 1963, Sketchpad, one of the first architectural software programs, allowed architects and designers to move and change objects on screen. Rapidly, traditional hand drawing gave way to an ever-expanding suite of programs—­Revit, SketchUp, and BIM, among many others—that helped create floor plans and sections, track buildings’ energy usage, enhance sustainable construction, and aid in following building codes, to name just a few uses. 

The architects exhibiting in “Trans­ductions” view newly evolving forms of AI “like a new tool rather than a profession-­ending development,” says Vigneri-Beane, despite what some of his peers fear about the technology. He adds, “I do appreciate that it’s a somewhat unnerving thing for people, [but] I feel a familiarity with the rhetoric.”

After all, he says, AI doesn’t just do the job. “To get something interesting and worth saving in AI, an enormous amount of time is required,” he says. “My architectural vocabulary has gotten much more precise and my visual sense has gotten an incredible workout, exercising all these muscles which have atrophied a little bit.”

Vien agrees: “I think these are extremely powerful tools for an architect and designer. Do I think it’s the entire future of architecture? No, but I think it’s a tool and a medium that can expand the long history of mediums and media that architects can use not just to represent their work but as a generator of ideas.”