Across the industry, architects and designers are debating the creative and practical value of artificial intelligence, or AI. Is this new tech destined to destroy the careers of these creatives, or could it be the tool they've been waiting for to remove the drudgery of certain tasks and even achieve better results?
Jono Fleming, co-host of The House Project at Bunnings and of the House of Style podcast, recently "had a play" on an AI program called Midjourney. "It was a fun weekend for me," he says. Jono designed what he called a "dream home scenario, you know, a mid-century house in the Tasmanian wilderness, nothing too serious". He had heard a lot about AI and as a designer wanted to have a play before he formed an immoveable opinion on his profession's future. Then he posted the designs, which he hesitates to call his own since he called on the buildings of German-American architect Mies van der Rohe and other greats to achieve the end result, on Instagram.
"It was wild," says the designer. "There were a few positive opinions about the design. Nobody was overtly negative. But what surprised me was the number of people saying that they feel scared, or might lose their jobs, or that it might deter people thinking of studying design."
There's a kind of awed hysteria to the predictions about AI and its future impact on architects, indeed all creatives, and humanity. Even before it has been completely understood, absorbed, and certainly ratified, there are those who applaud its potential while others do not.
AI arrived brashly within the design and architecture world, threatening to take jobs merely by existing, but also by working better than expected, by turning out top-notch designs, and by stunning clients and architects with until-very-recently unimaginable possibilities. AI text-to-image software like Midjourney, DALL-E and Stable Diffusion can create eerily real-looking imaginary buildings.
But even Midjourney founder David Holz says he sees artists - and that includes architects and designers - as customers rather than competitors of Midjourney. He told The Register that artists use Midjourney for rapid prototyping of artistic concepts to show to clients before starting work themselves.
Jono agrees, and says AI can capture a vision of a project quickly. Future applications remain to be seen and are up for debate, but Jono says it might be helpful in the early stages of a project. "I can see it as beneficial in the concepting and mood-boarding phase. To get across some big ideas. You can source images from Pinterest - and nobody is saying that Pinterest is going to take the job of designers by the way - but clients are coming to me for my point of view. I see AI as a tool."
Jono says the common concern that clients will bypass designers and even architects, and use AI to do the job instead, is unfounded. "Every client comes to you with their wish list. Everyone wants their dream house. But those dream tiles may not exist. A designer needs to go and source them, and find something in the client's price range. It's still my job, as it is with architects, to create a cohesive scene, to design a building that will hold up in reality."
Lauren Li, creative director at Melbourne-based design studio Sisalla, agrees it's another tool. "But it isn't taking the place of design work. We need to tell AI precisely what we want to see, and most clients don't know what they want. Creating a render of an imaginary space isn't helping them achieve their goal of living in a beautiful home, tailored to them. It's not creating that magic that an interior designer can design for their clients. And for now, it isn't sourcing, ordering, co-ordinating trades, scheduling, documenting or creating a wonderful client experience throughout the project," she says.
One New York-based creator, award-winning architect Eric Reinholdt, makes videos about architecture and his process of making architecture in his channel 30X40 Design, which has 1.08 million subscribers. In his latest video, he reveals how he uses AI as a design tool in his architecture practice.
Eric says he has been producing similar-looking results because he follows the same efficient and safe path he has been using for 30 years as an architect. "I return to familiar forms, plan layouts and details that have worked in the past. And this is a perfect use case for generative AI design tools - like Midjourney - to help break the frame and help me quickly explore options I may not have previously considered." He says the true power of Midjourney is as a tool for ideation.
"This is very likely the way the AI workflow will impact architecture in the near future. Not as a substitute of an actual human being, but as a powerful visual idea iterator," says one viewer in response to the video.
Another architect demonstrated the usefulness of a program like Midjourney to design a house in the tropics. The result is a stunning glass structure set in a rainforest, a black framed masterpiece with floor to ceiling glass, a bold and inviting entry. Another win for AI. But there are structural faults with the non-human design, and the architect made a lot of tweaks using intuition and experience to guide him.
One viewer went to the crux of the issue from a client's perspective. "As a person that wants to build their dream home would using something like Midjourney make the design process cheaper? If I came to you with a rough idea of my vision via a Midjourney image would that make your job faster?"
Another viewer probed: "Architects becoming obsolete?" The architect replied simply and resolutely, giving much hope to architects and designers everywhere: "Nope."
Disclaimer: this article was written by a human.