Artificial Intelligence in Building Design & Architecture: Could Errazuriz be right?

Sebastian Errazuriz - innovative and sometimes provocative building architect in New York raised a lot of emotions recently by stating:

“It is important that architects are warned as soon as possible that 90% of their jobs are at risk. The reasons are quite simple - architecture is one of those fields of work in which it takes 2 to 3 years to develop a project.” According to Errazuriz, that makes it almost impossible for architects to compete with upcoming technologies such as Artificial intelligence (AI) and the speed at which they are developing.

“The thing is you’re not that special” was the final kick in the pants from Errazuriz to any cocky architect still strutting around and not getting the message. 

Could Errazuriz be right? Is the design of buildings becoming a commodity?

From Art to Science to Technology to Commodity

In the 1990s I was a young engineer riding the seemingly endless waves of growth in wireless and broadband technology - first as a signal processing engineer at bellwether Ericsson’s gleaming R&D quarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; later as an engineering manager at Panasonic’s mobile phone division in Suwanee, Georgia. The Wireless industry grew at a torrid pace as people became increasingly connected and I would have 4 to 5 recruiters trying to entice me with job offers on any given week.

But as an industry grows - Art transitions to Science which gets converted to Technology - and eventually the industry gets commoditized. In the 1990s wireless design could be considered almost an Art; every function from the radio signal down to the decoded voice or data bits required careful design and multiple components, algorithms, and specialized designers. Over time these functions got integrated and commoditized and did not require the same number of designers or companies. Around 2006 Panasonic closed its doors in Suwanee. I drove by there recently and came to realize that the local school district had bought out the old building that had once housed 450 Panasonic employees. And in 2009, Ericsson closed its operation in North Carolina eliminating 420 jobs as they consolidated operations to other locations.  

Parallels in the built industry

Building architecture has traditionally been considered Art; in fact luminary architect Renzo Piano once said - “There are few professions in the world that allow you to make something beautiful, and architecture is certainly one of them. ”

But that Art has been transitioning to Science and Technology since the 1980s with the advent of CAD automation. Recently I learned that startup building design company Higharc is designing a house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina completely using software. The company offers a design app with embedded AI that learns prescriptive span tables and building codes to design variations of custom homes. The software can automatically adjust and restructure the entire building as the homebuyer switches between options such as number of floors, bedrooms, and size of each room. In addition the software displays an estimated cost that also adapts with each option, so that users stay within budget.

Swedish firms Wallgren Arkitekter and BOX Bygg recently announced a parametric design tool that can generate building plans automatically. AI integrated into design software can synthesize vast amounts of architectural knowledge in minutes - what would take weeks for the typical architect. Users can input the site, location, size of plot, kind of building - and the app will generate a range of options in minutes. Users can even see everything in Augmented Reality, try out different fitouts and furniture, and then send the design to local contractors who will bid and build the project. 

New York design firm Mancini Duffy’s portfolio includes projects at American Airlines’ facilities at Boston International Airport and KPMG’s Innovation Lab at 560 Lexington Avenue, New York. I got a chance to hear the company’s vision to transition from using traditional architectural drawings to building directly from 3D models at the Shadow Summit Atlanta in September.

AI algorithms such as Deep Neural Networks (DNN) can evaluate designs and decompose them into smaller and essential building blocks - which can then be rearranged in thousands of ways for new home designs. DNN can decipher patterns that architects know intuitively but only after having spent many years on different projects. DNN can also consider climatic, cultural, and socio-economic factors when computing possible designs. Imagine a photo of the user’s preferences being fed into the DNN, or maybe the fact that the living quarters has to be occupied by a teenager, senior citizen, as well as a pet - and the DNN's ability to combine that with site and structural constraints to come up with thousands of possible designs. 

So what should architects do? 

1) Architects could transition into the extreme artistic side of architecture, and the high-profile, complex projects which will continue to be the domain of humans. The challenge with this strategy is that far fewer number of architects will be needed. 

2) Rather than seeing AI as a threat, architectural firms could leverage AI tools for hybrid design; this will free these firms from non-creative tasks and enable them to democratize beautiful designs and make them accessible to a wider population. Maybe some day, designs from the likes of Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano and others can be accessible to all - just by the user paying a royalty fee.

3) Architects could become technologists and platform developers. In June 2018 at their shareholders meeting, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon referred to Walmart not as a retail entity nor a grocery store - but as a technology company. In a similar way architectural firms could start thinking of themselves as technology companies in architecture. 

Conclusions - Gradually, then suddenly

Architecture will always have some aspects of art and craftsmanship. Regardless, many tasks within architecture are in the process of getting deconstructed and commoditized. In a conversation in the novel “The Sun Also Rises” by author Ernest Hemingway, one man asks another - “How did you go bankrupt”? The other man answers - “Gradually, then suddenly.” 

In the building industry - AI’s influence and effects are now gradual. But it may soon become sudden.

P.S. Feel free to message me with questions about AI and Machine learning.