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Join us as we embark on a captivating journey through the ever-evolving intersection of AI, data, and architecture. In this podcast, we dive deep into the vast potential of AI for architecture and design, examining the remarkable possibilities it offers, while also acknowledging the challenges it presents. Our mission is to expand the conversation, engaging with leaders, thinkers, and doers in the ecosystem. We invite them to share their profound insights, groundbreaking ideas, and innovative approaches to designing the future.
Nathalie Rozencwajg is the founder of NAME Architecture and an internationally-acclaimed award-winning architect. In recent years, together with her team, she has been exploring the implications of AI for architecture and questioning the future of practice and education.
Melanie is an awarded creative entrepreneur who specializes in data strategy. She offers guidance and solutions on how data can be strategically leveraged to foster development and innovation while upholding ethical considerations.
Welcome to Designing Futures, exploring AI, data, architecture, and beyond. In this podcast, we dive deep into the insights, groundbreaking ideas, and innovative approaches shared by our guests.
Speaker 2:Together, we explore the immense potential of AI for architecture and design, unraveling its remarkable possibilities and acknowledging the challenges it presents.
Speaker 1:Today, we're very happy to welcome Lara Belkin on our podcast episode. It's great to have you with us, Lara.
Speaker 3:It's lovely to be here.
Speaker 2:Hello, Lara. It's a real pleasure. So Lara Belkin, you are an architect and urbanist and lecturer at Syracuse University School of Architecture. You are completing a PhD at Harvard University where you previously received dual masters of architecture and planning degrees. Your research explores infrastructure as a site of conflict and negotiation in Greater Paris.
Speaker 2:Among many articles, you have also published an article on the influence of new technology and Internet blogs on gentrification in New York City. You have taught at Columbia University, the Architectural Association, Yale and Harvard, and worked professionally creating urban regeneration strategies with public agencies in New York and Washington DC. Woah. That's impressive. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3:It's really exciting to join you.
Speaker 1:So, Lara, in this podcast episode, we are really interested in questioning whether there are historical parallels in architecture, both as a profession as and as an art in general, with what the implications of AI tools have and will have on architecture. We'd like to talk with you to draw comparisons or test if there's been an advent such as the AI that created such a paradigm shift in the past. So maybe we could start as a first question to launch the discussion. Maybe a very quick overlook on what is architecture as a profession as we know it today?
Speaker 3:Yes. Well, it's interesting that architecture the architectural architectural field as we know it today is fairly recent that actually we we first see historically mention of the field of architecture and and the architect in the work of Vitruvius in his work Da architectura, 10 books on architecture, which he presented to the emperor Roman emperor Augustus, which is a very interesting interesting and influential work in that it claimed that building technology and architectural construction was essential to maintaining authority and establishing an enduring empire. And it's interesting that actually the role and specific discussion of architecture disappears then in the Middle Ages and really doesn't appear again until the Renaissance and, until the revisiting of Vitruvius' work, by figures like Alberti, who then presented his own work, on architecture, in 10 books, modeling after Vitruvius. We first see also in the 15th 16th centuries figures like Andrea Palladio, who in in Italy and in the Veneto really organized what we recognize today as an independent practice within the field of architecture. Alessi was another architect, with an independent practice at that time.
Speaker 3:But, subsequently, we experienced that the church had such a a dominating and influential role in in the design and construction of buildings that architects per se were were largely anonymous or or their work really fell under the purview of kind of craftsmen and builders. And it's really not until, in England, in particular, under Henry the 8th with the separation with the creation of the Church of England and the distancing from the pope and and the Catholic church in Rome that suddenly new architectural patrons emerge. This is also kind of the emergence of the bourgeoisie and and a wealthier class of new patrons for architecture outside of the church, and this is when we begin to see those who design and construct buildings being recognized by name. And but it's interesting that that it's not really until 19th century that we move from a system of apprenticeship where where builders, craftsmen, architects were really part of professional organizations that that and were trained based on a kind of atelier apprenticeship system. But it's not until the establishment of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in France and in 19th century when this the the Ecole des Beaux Arts actually, you know, is is is created much earlier, but it starts to influence Yeah.
Speaker 3:Architectural education and training both in the US and the UK in 19th century. In the UK, the Architectural Association is the first, actually, membership membership organization and school to set up a program of study in architecture outside of the apprenticeship system in the and Cambridge is the first to establish an actual degree in the field of architecture. In the United States, the first degree program is was established at m I at MIT not long around the same in the same period. So what we, you know, discuss as kind of architects and architectural training today is really, you know, somewhat somewhat recent phenomenon.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah. And it's actually very interesting and important, I think, to put these things in perspective in terms of what we see as a acquired and established system to understand that the built environment wasn't always produced with such a a definite system in place.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. You know, but it's it's also interesting to, you know, not only to talk about the transformations within the system of architectural education and, you know, who architects are and what makes them, but also the kind of history of technological in innovation and how it's interacted with the architectural field throughout history.
Speaker 2:Could you actually elaborate a bit on that question? Is there a first maybe a correlation between the profession of architecture and the advancement of technology or not? And how really this relation build up or changed over time?
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting that, you know, we we have Vitruvius in his 10 books who really talks about firmitas, utilityas, venustas, as the essential qualities. Strength, utility, and beauty as the essential qualities of architecture, which are are the key to the kind of technology of maintaining authority, as as I mentioned before, and are a kind of core technological qualities, actually, to constructing empire, but we start to see a kind of evolution in technologies of representation later on in a period of rediscovery of the Roman world. So we see this particularly in the 15th century, in the 1400, first in the technology, not of building, but of representation, so the technology of seeing. We start to see the development of studies of linear perspective. So the architect, the Florentine architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, who's responsible for the famous Florence Dome cathedral, he actually developed a system of linear perspective.
Speaker 3:Also, in 15th century, we have Alberti, who, in a treatise on painting, also kind of documents this new way of representing representing perspectival vision. It's interesting that a a a little bit a few centuries later in France, Gaspar Monge further made the connection between the kind of science of and technology of seeing and the and with the production of architecture and architectural representation directly in his studies and and and first course offerings on descriptive geometry, which is something that architects have continued to use, you know
Speaker 1:Yeah. Up to the advent of 3 d.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1:We don't understand how they're produced anymore, but they are. I think that's actually a really, really interesting topic that we will come back to later because I what is interesting with the AI as a tool is that it's both generative design per se, but also the type of representation. And you've highlighted here that the technology advancements that we could consider in in in the historical development are both technology as in building technology, but also the technology of representation that's really changed the role of the designers.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And often when we talk about AI and architecture today, what we are end up talking about is representation, and I think that's that's a conversation, you know, very present at the moment when we talk about architecture and and AI that are we talking about buildings and construction and materials, or are we talking about ways of representing architecture? And I think that line is sometimes a bit unclear, blurry when we talk about AI and architectural production today to kind of continue with this sort of his more historical perspective on perspective or historical perspective on representation. Kind of another really key development is is the relationship between the invention of the printing press, for example, and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in Germany in the 14 fifties. And it's interesting that the Catholic church was very concerned about how mass reproduction, religious doctrine might disempower or undermine the church's control and a kind of monopoly on the practice and teaching of religion and spirituality, but that Victor Hugo in the 18th century in his his volume Notre Dame De Paris 14/82, which in English has been published as The Hunchback of Notre.
Speaker 3:Victor Hugo has a very interesting passage in the hunt in in Notre Dame de Pa a chapter called This Will Kill Kill That, and his character Frodo, who says, This Will Kill That. Small Things Overcome Great Ones. The Book Will Kill the Building.
Speaker 1:And, you
Speaker 3:know, I think it's very interesting that in the 19th century, in a period of kind of romanticism and nostalgia and revisiting of 15th century, that Victor Hugo is reflecting on how the role of architecture in society was fundamentally changed by the innovation of the mass production of of print and text, and that suddenly buildings, which, you know, the Gothic cathedral, which was really a repository repository of of narratives and stories Yeah. Communicated to the mass public, especially to what was, you know, largely an illiterate public for centuries, that suddenly the role of buildings to kind of communicate was taken up, you know, by mass production of of text. And and so, you know, it's it's interesting that you have to think about how technological innovation doesn't just impact construction techniques and the technology of building, but but the essential role of architecture in in culture and in society. So I I think that was a kind of interesting moment in 15th century to to to consider.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. That I think is is very interesting in terms of one of the strong arguments that are being made today is that the tool has a sense of democratization of of creativity that many people can use it and have access to levels of creativity and quality of output that was maybe much more contained before the advent of the tools, both in terms of the actual probably creation of the imagery that we were describing. But also, I guess it poses similar questions to the one that the Victoria Gu asked in terms of who uses the tool now? Is it is there a difference then between the critical thinking that someone trained to be a designer inputs in this and what outputs this creates? Or does this democratization mean that anyone can do something with it and it has the same quality or what would be the right word or or value?
Speaker 1:Value.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think this this question of, you know, so what is the role of the architect if suddenly tools become so powerful that anyone can use them? You know, what is what is the role of the architect and the designer? And so, you know, just to back up a little bit, I think this is a question that's that's been asked repeatedly in history, and we particularly saw this in the industrial revolution of the 19th century, particularly in Britain. Victor Hugo, I mentioned, was kind of part of a backlash and a looking backward to the the to the Gothic era, the the medieval era.
Speaker 3:And in 19th century Britain, we saw the Industrial Revolution and I think the most archetypal building in Britain that represents this is the Crystal Palace, which was, designed by Joseph Paxton and built for it to house the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 18/51, and then relocated to Sydenham. And, John Ruskin, an art critic, cultural critic, preeminent public intellectual of that period was highly critical of the new industrial architecture, and he felt that, actually, the architect lost, and the the architect, artist, designer, and craftsman all lost their identity and became abstracted from their own labor when suddenly you had a prefabricated building that was constructed of glass and steel components fabricated piece by piece on a kind of assembly line production sequence in a factory and then relocated to be assembled on-site. Suddenly, you know, it became unclear who who is really the designer here? Who's who's actually making this? Is there, you know, is there still art involved?
Speaker 3:And, you know, there was a a real concern that suddenly design and art was you know, the machines had taken over, that machine logic had suddenly overtaken culture, And so this resulted in a kind of a backlash and the emergence of the neo gothic movement in Britain and, a return to traditional craft and and the real renewed interest in sculpture, woodwork, and and other materials. So we kind of saw a new, generation of neo gothic buildings, including the, you know, most famous houses of parliament parliament building in Britain. And and so this question of how does technology impact what an architect does and, you know, and an architect's identity and the identity of of and what who's actually designing is a really interesting one. This was then taken up by the arts and crafts movement, figure like William Morris, who, became very interested in how you could embrace industrial production. He taught himself all the new technologies of printing and and other fab new tools of fabrication, but really tried to marry artistic production and craft with new forms of mass production.
Speaker 3:And, of course, this thinking was very influential on in the next century, beginning in the 19 twenties thirties, on the founders of the Bauhaus movement, who, rather than trying to kind of revive traditional craft on an industrial scale, really tried to understand whether there was artistry in industry. So really kind of embraced, a new machine aesthetic and became very, very interested in whether design and art and culture could be somehow imbibed in in new industrial production or whether industry could be beautiful. I think you might you might articulate as a kind of central question or claim of the of the Bauhaus, and so I think these questions are really interesting when we're when we talk about AI and its relationship to the designer and to the artist and the architects today and how we educate young architects. So, you know, does this mean that I I one of your previous interviewers talked about, you know, some have have posited that, actually, AI has changed our relationship to technology, that we've somehow going from a a transactional relationship with innovative technological tools where we kind of ask AutoCAD to perform an operation for us, and it spits out what we've, you know, intended, but just possibly faster and with less effort on our part.
Speaker 3:But they we pretty much kind of know what the outcome is that we're looking for to a relational relationship with the machine and new technology where we're actually kind of in a design collaboration with new technology. We don't know exactly what it is we're asking the machine to do for us, and actually we're kind of creative partners in coming up with something, and I think that's a very interesting way to frame it on the one hand, on the other, I would I have a slightly different perspective in that I think we've always had a relational relationship to new technologies. And actually, you know, figures in the field of science, technology, and society studies, someone, a a philosopher such as Bruno Latour, are very interested in the way that new technologies and new advancement in science actually often tell us what can be designed. And if you think of, you know, a building like the Crystal Palace or the Eiffel Tower, you know, it's a a really interesting archetype for this that you wouldn't you can argue that it's new material science and the possibility of using new materials that actually tells designers what can now be created, what can now be designed, and that, you know, it's actually new material science that completely changes aesthetics.
Speaker 1:I think, what's interesting is that what we see here is that the strength of creativity actually lies in the people and the figures that use think about this technology as a way to use it with what they've learned and what they've known from the past. It's not that it's a radical change and we we forget everything and we we start anew, but that it's ways of actually combining in the arts and crafts movement and the Bauhaus, for example, the way of combining a traditional knowledge with the new technology that emerge from which the creativity actually emerges.
Speaker 3:Ways of combining traditional knowledge with new tools. Yeah. I mean, I think, one thing that we can't emphasize enough is that what underlies AI is data, and so AI is always based on things that have been created in the past, things that are existing, and so I think we need to be very aware. It it's true on the one hand that AI these tools become so advanced and so accessible that, you know, you you can make the the case that anyone is can now be an architect or a designer, and and anyone is suddenly powerful in collaboration with a with an AI collaborate collaborator. At the same time, collaborators with AI need to be hyperaware of of what underlies the information or or innovation that that might come from using an AI based, you know, evolutionary tool, which is kind of really understanding that the data that that has gone into the tool may be biased or is selective or limited.
Speaker 3:And so I think, actually, perhaps the role of the designer is to become much more savvy or much more conscious of the kind of basic material that, AI tools might be working working from.
Speaker 2:Is it Laa, sorry to Academia, if we continue in that field of thought, would you say here that in terms of the educational system a bit, we have to teach students a bit more the creative narratives as well or be very aware and responsible of the data that they use in terms of creative narratives? And how is this relation between creative, narrativity, and process of architecture is really needs to be embedded together?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think, you know, what if if if designers are now collaborators rather than, kind of I I don't think architects have been unique authors or or artists for quite quite some time. I mean, art architecture is an incredibly collaborative art and and has become kind of more so in in kind of recent years. And as we we've really seen the rise of a lot of design collectives, for example, rather than kind of name, that that these have really started to supplant the Starchitect system within architecture. So I think architects have seen themselves as collaborators either with other designers, other creative people.
Speaker 3:They're now seeing themselves as collaborators perhaps with, technology more than ever. But I think, you know, the role of, a designer as curator, you know, who you you need to I think we need to teach young architects how to discern or make an argument for what's good. You know? What what is of value? So that's kind of one, I think, primary role of architectural educators, but also, you know, teaching architects and designers to evaluate the data and be to become very sophisticated about what the the materials and information they're they're working with.
Speaker 3:So, you know, curators not of final product, not only of final product, but of, you know, the essential ingredients. You know? And I think perhaps, you know, more than I don't know if architecture has been taught as a craft for quite a long time. You know, we're we're no longer necessarily teaching descriptive geometry and the kind of crafting of, you know, rep representation in particular. But I think we've seen, you know, as educators, we've seen a move to really teaching and discussing with students how to make an argument for what is of value and and, you know, the kind of and so I think now we need to be able to teach how to evaluate, you know, what data is of value.
Speaker 1:So, Lara, one thing that is very interesting from everything you've just said is and maybe where the AI tools set themselves as a slightly different is the amount of output that it generates at very at any stage of the process. So how do we deal with that in terms of educators when students are confronted to such an amount to choose from and the role of curators is even more signified, and and what tools do they have to to be able to judge?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think, you know, this question of whether AI represents a kind of parallel to historical shifts in technology or a paradigm shift is really an interesting one. And one thing we know for sure is just the difference in the speed at which AI and evolutionary tools in computer technology produce new outcomes, but but the speed, but also the the volume, you know, the sheer quantity of options, you know, that AI tools produce at, you know, an extremely rapid rate is really does seem to be something new and especially, you know, hard to grapple with, when we're talking about the role of the of the designer, the role of the architect, and architectural education. So, but I think that we're so we're seeing that perhaps what we need to teach is thinking is about how architects can become curators, how architects can evaluate what's good among this kind of mass scale of of output. How do we make an argument for what is of value?
Speaker 3:And I think that really needs to become central to the emphasis in architectural education today. But, also, you know, not just what outputs are of value, but but, really, we really need to train young architects to be curators of the inputs of the huge massive data that is basically the material being input to produce, design outcomes and understanding that much of our data is biased and is produced without a critical view. And so I think we need to train architects to be as discerning in the inputting of data as they are of kind of the quality of of and the value of output of AI tools.
Speaker 2:In line of of what you are saying right now, in terms of the people who are developing these tools, so on the other end, do you see that they have a responsibility in how they develop those tools? And do you think that maybe it somehow should be regulated as well?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, I think what we're seeing is with rapid advances in in technology and media, not just in AI, but, you know, in social media, we're seeing that this speed and mass scale of outputs were often seeing the amplification of of extremes and amplification of existing social bias. And I think this, you know, may influence design in a in a kind of less more indirect way than it influences politics, for example. But I think we really need to be very conscious both as users and of regular regulators of promoting equality, responsibility, and a kind of critical attention to data that that is input into our tools in in all in all fields. So, you know, how one does this I don't know if it's possible to regulate this within the production of of architecture, exactly how how that would work, but I think it's definitely something that educational institutions are thinking about and and and addressing.
Speaker 3:You know, I think we're kind of in early stages of doing this, but it's definitely something that's, critical.
Speaker 1:An interesting parallel to be made here with what you've said at the outset of the episode is you described how Vitruvius developed the 10 books as a presentation to the emperor to dominate and have a greater influence over the people. I wonder how much we can see these tools developing as a kind of new dogma as well. And the risk that that they have in in in developing actually a dogma because in of the in the data that's input and and of the way that they're being used.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it's it's that's a good question because on the one hand, it's true. We do see, you know, possibly the amplification of of inherent biases within, you know, possibilities and images and information that that already exists in the world and online. But on the other hand, you know, the new creative output is so diverse and so very that, you know, you can argue that that with a critical eye, it's possible to kind of push back against that as well. And so I think we need to be developing a consciousness about that and a consciousness about the biases that may be inherent in the tools that we're creating to make sure that they don't become dogmatic.
Speaker 3:And, you know, that also, I think, you know, one question is when we talk about AI and architectural production today, we're largely talking about images, not yet about as much about construction and engineering. I mean, I I I think that is changing very quickly, but it's interesting in our you know, to what extent do the images the architectural images we're seeing, and we we have seen architectural education and the production of students, in particular becoming much more image centric. So it's we see very, very dramatic radical images, but it's not always clear that there is something spatial or material behind them. And and that's a really interesting question, you know, to what degree is our kind of physical reality keeping up with our representational reality when when we're using AI tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a very, very good point and good question. Of course, the tools are catching up very quickly. So we are seeing the images combined with actually a three-dimensional understanding of these spaces more and more. But again, this question comes to is it a three-dimensional space that is created with intention or just as of the result of an image, that was generated?
Speaker 1:I think that this last point I would want to make that I think is interesting, which came came up as well from your description, is that there is also a parallel to be made here between a certain revival, of the past and a a revival of previous architectural or historical styles with the tools because actually, and especially with the initially when the first Midjourney images came out, there was a very strong stylistic Gaudi effect to to them. You could just there's an interesting, I think, parallel to be made here in terms of how what always presented kind of new movements in architecture were very often actually a commentary and a revival of past styles or the way that that at that time the society interpreted what the past was. And I I wonder how much of this parallel can be made today with the the way that the data is actually being revived into a new imagery.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's very interesting because, you know, we talked about the Bauhaus and the kind of machine aesthetic of modernism and of, you know, aesthetic movements like futurism. And what is our what is the machine aesthetic of AI? It's a kind of neo you know, post postmodernism in a in a in in effect. It's a kind of revival of the aesthetic of collage and as assemblage.
Speaker 3:And, you know, it maybe it's not, coincidental that we're also seeing the kind of the revival of, you know, 19 seventies, eighties, postmodern aesthetics within architecture, which was itself a kind of revival of Yes. Historicism and classicism. So it's, you know, it's an interesting time. What is what is the aesthetic of AI tools? Is it, you know, is it, futurist, or is that is it actually, you know, historic revival?
Speaker 3:That is a really, really good question, but, you know, I think another question is, is it possible to be radical and subversive using tools that are, you know, based on collage and assemblage and kind of new juxtapositions and combination? And and, I think we are seeing some really interesting propositions, and and that that is something we should be thinking about and teaching is how how can you, intervene, in the data or in the inputs, to be radical and subversive or to be critical. We we we've, talked about critical practice within architecture for many, many years, and, what does it mean to, launch a critical AI practice, you know, in our design process? I think that's a really fundamental and important question.
Speaker 1:Lara, thank you super much. I think it would be great to finish on that very interesting question and input to think maybe about how the reuse of the past could design the future. I mean, I'm sure. Right? You know, let's see what
Speaker 2:AI brings to us.
Speaker 1:It was really interesting. Thank you. A very passionate talk. Thank you very much. We've learned so much on these parallels that can be made, and thanks for all your valuable insights, Lara.
Speaker 1:We look forward to pursuing this conversation as the the tools evolve and and taking this on maybe in a in a few months' time with the new some new observations and inputs.
Speaker 3:I've really enjoyed it and have a lot of new thoughts. So I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Speaker 1:We greatly appreciate you tuning into our podcast. If you have any suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like us to explore, we would love to hear from you. You can find our contact information in the show notes or on our website. Thank you again for being part
Speaker 2:of a podcast community. Stay tuned for more engaging discussions, captivating stories, and valuable insights.