Midjourney, DALL-E and Stable Diffusion have been surprising us for months with the quality of the images they are capable of generating, and their functionalities are already making illustrators tremble. However, there are other segments in which these generative AI models can end up turning the market, and one of them is undoubtedly architecture.
Unimaginable buildings. Or so it seemed, until amateurs and architecture experts started using these tools to expand their creativity. As indicated by the Financial Times, one of them, Hassan Ragab, has long been surprising with all kinds of ideas for exterior and interior architecture and publishes them on his Instagram account.
“It’s non-stop”. Ragab himself worked in architecture and design offices until he started dedicating more and more time to exploring these tools to launch all kinds of ideas. The pace is frantic, he explains, and in that “it is very different from architecture, which is very slow. I quit my job in 2019 and continued working on the same building.” His work has not yet been translated into real architecture, but architecture has become a visual medium in itself.
AI as an architect’s assistant. These advances inevitably provoke the idea that AI could end up taking jobs away from architects, but as in other disciplines, this type of tool can be very helpful to these professionals. “Everything is possible [with AI] and we should not fear it, we should welcome it.”
Another way to design buildings. Wanyu He also made the leap. Graduated in architecture, she ended up founding the LookX office in 2016 and hiring several former engineers from Google, AI specialists, mathematicians, and designers. Together they are creating an AI tool for architects, and although their creations are more “traditional”, the idea is precisely that: to propose a help to architects with which they can work better.
The trend gains followers. Publications like Parametric Architecture welcome this new discipline of architecture with artificial intelligence, and the list of designers and creators of new and surprising designs is growing, but already has some notable figures like the aforementioned Hassan Ragab. Among them are, of course, professionals in the traditional segment, but also artists and designers with new and suggestive ideas.
Also interiors and urban planning. The ability of AI is also being used in the world of architecture and interior design, and here again a wave of creators is taking advantage of these models to explore all kinds of possibilities. In urban planning, more of the same: tools like Text2Map help companies in this area to work with new ideas. As noted in The New York Times, Zaha Hadid Architects, another of the leading offices in this area, helps, for example, to redesign offices to better utilize these workspace.
Image | Zaha Hadid Architects
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