Creativity and Agency in the first AI age

Before we start

Speaking at several AI forums throughout 2023 provided me with valuable opportunities to address angles extending beyond the commonly discussed disruption, to test ideas, debate, and learn from fellow creatives and AI experts.

I believe that AI will influence a deeper, more fundamental aspect of our profession, so I intentionally chose to focus not on the "what" and "how" of AI, as there already is ample material available on building skills. Instead, I would like to take a deeper dive into the broader cultural past, present, and future of our discipline, hoping that together, we could reframe the future value of architects through the lens of an AI-powered process.

The title of this article – emphasizing agency and creativity – is a direct nod to a book written by Reyner Banham that deeply impacted me during my college years.

Banham's approach delved not only into the historical aspects of modernity but also offered a comprehensive cultural view of the period. One without the other would be myopic. In the spirit of Bahnam, I hope to subliminally encourage all of us to adopt a similarly holistic cultural outlook in assessing and navigating the changes we are currently experiencing, charting the future with a sense of broader perspective.

A look back

Throughout most of history, the world has been shaped by the driving force of muscle power. Architects, like master masons and other early trades, had a direct and physical connection to their work. We were on site, measuring, building, carving, painting.

But as time progressed, steam power, electricity, computation, and artificial intelligence emerged, pushing (and progressively displacing) the boundaries of human ability, driving us towards new horizons. Are there any uncharted territories left for us to conquer? Are there any safe havens that we won’t be displaced from?

In 2017, Max Tegmark visually depicted the landscape of human competence in his book "Life 3.0 " However, as we fast forward into 2024, we realize that occupations previously considered safe from automation are now also at risk. The rising tide of technological advancement has rendered highly valuable professional tasks like medical diagnostics and complex legal problem solving highly susceptible to automation.

This raises the question: What factors are the real threats to professions?

In today's rapidly changing world, architects need to adapt and transform themselves. By embracing emerging technologies and leveraging their creativity, architects can navigate these changes and continue to design spaces and places with meaningful positive impact on people and other life forms. As the boundaries of the architectural profession are being reshaped, it is crucial to embrace the transformative power of technology and find a viable path forward – even if this means venturing sharply outside our comfort level and normative business models.

The future is not what it used to be

Kai Fu Lee's Labor Charts categorize professions based on their procedural complexity and the demand for empathy and social skills.

The “Danger Zone” includes tasks easily replaced by AI, while the “Slow Creep” zone involves professions heavily reliant on AI but with human control. The “Human Veneer” zone highlights the need for social interaction, and the “Safe Zone” represents collaborative AI-human curation. Understanding these categories helps navigate the evolving landscape, ensuring a meaningful role for humans alongside AI.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how this chart can be applied to the field of architecture and specifically, the tasks we undertake in our daily professional services:

As you look at the graph above, I invite you to reflect on how it makes you feel. Take a moment to think about your own professional life over the span of last month:

Which quadrant do you find yourself spending the most time in? Consider the type of service that you believe brings value to your practice. What do your clients rely on you for?

While this exploration may be challenging, or even unnerving, it is important for us as a profession to acknowledge and confront these realities. It is crucial that we work towards renewing our value and relevance, ultimately striving to position ourselves in the long-term safe zone, not as a static bulletproof status-quo, but a dynamic evolution in the right direction.

By understanding the tasks and services that lie within each quadrant, we can identify areas where AI and automation may have the potential to impact our work, for better or worse. This awareness allows us to assess how we can leverage technology to enhance efficiency and accuracy while preserving the unique qualities that make architecture a valuable and ultimately human-centric profession.

Recognizing the changing landscape and adapting our practices accordingly will enable us to secure our position in the safe zone, where human creativity, empathy, communication and problem-solving abilities continue to play a crucial role. To shape the future of architecture and remain relevant in an AI-driven world, we must continuously redefine and reimagine our value. In response to technological advancements and the potential impact of AI on professions, the architecture industry must adapt rather than cling to the status-quo by stubbornly digging our hills into the past.

The rise of AI also challenges the relevance of professional licenses and prompts us to reassess the value proposition of architects as the only professional cohort legally allowed to design buildings. Dan Susskind 's concept of "the grand bargain" questions the necessity of professional licenses when AI software can match the capabilities of qualified professionals. Certainly, the accountability bottom line is warranting the presence of a human Qualified Professional for now, but surely legal frameworks can be tweaked, so long as accountability is clearly assigned to a party – especially if this incentivises creativity, quality, regenerative design and better outcomes. This necessitates a reassessment of the value architects provide and underscores the importance of clearly articulating it to ensure continued relevance.

No great opportunity comes without its challenges. Embracing AI requires adopting an innovative, process-driven mindset rather than a derivative application-driven approach. Caution must be exercised to avoid simply substituting older tools with newer AI tools without fully understanding their potential. Is our attachment to the tools of the past limiting our ability to think innovatively for the future? This concern keeps me awake at night, pondering the extent to which we are confined by our reliance on outdated practices.

Considering the value proposition of most architecture and design businesses, we primarily charge for our time and the deliverables we produce. However, when these tasks and outputs become commoditized, where does our unique contribution lie?

If we are being honest with ourselves, architecture has lost its direct connection with the tangible product of our work, the building itself, many centuries ago. Since the invention of paper, our role has primarily revolved around conjuring and representing design ideas. Countless individuals have engaged for decades in producing 2D images, plans, sections, and details of future buildings, but not the physical structures themselves.

Although computers have expedited and improved this process, developing it into 3D models and using BIM technology, the ultimate outcome remains just a representation of architecture.

The historical photos above may appear comically outmoded, yet they still capture the essence of our current practices. We have stopped lying across drawing boards, but fundamentally, other than our posture, not much more has changed in the way we work.

Moving forward

When Chat GPT tweeted suggesting that AI won't replace us but rather a person using AI will, it raised concerns about perpetuating a vicious cycle of replacing one tool with another. The simple shift from a using a T-square, to deploying CAD, BIM, and eventually generative AI to essentially do the same job, still seems like a predictable and derivative way of re-tooling an old process. This approach focuses solely on the outcome, while I believe we should leverage AI to question our reasons for design, our process, and our value as creative thinkers, empaths, and aggregators. We should aim to reinvent architecture rather than simply use AI for faster execution.

My fear is that if we employ a new tool with an old mindset, we are essentially committing to accelerated obsolescence.

Designers need to reflect on the value of their work and be clear on why it is important and for whom. As AI models evolve, conceptual clarity becomes increasingly significant and translates into better outcomes. With each new release, AI improves in accuracy, reducing errors. Therefore, when producing images, designers should scrutinize their intent more closely.

In the series of images above, produced over the past 17 months, we can observe a sharp progression. In Midjourney Version 3, imperfections may have been kindly overlooked, with a focus on creating a desired atmosphere and mood. However, in newer versions, attention to detail, composition, hierarchy, and intent becomes increasingly more demanding. The image on the left may have captured the essence of biophilia loosely, but the one on the right should stand up to scrutiny in various aspects, from composition and proportion to the laws of physics, lighting, and workplace settings.

AI challenges designers to think harder, especially as feedback on their thoughts and creations is received within seconds. This constant feedback loop pushes designers to refine their work and make it more robust.

Because now we can

Hack the process

In the few examples below, the tool is pushed further, resulting in some unconventional and intriguing outcomes.

An ordinary stack of plates I noticed during a thesis reviews lunch break at the National University of Singapore, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Paul Rudoph’s Wisma Dharmala Sakti in Jakarta through its simple rotation and stacking of squares served as an accidental starting point for an early formalist experiment.

However ill-advised and superficial, this formalist equivalence sparked a reverse-engineering of a different stacking of plates – this time the work of Robert Therrien – into a building-like form. Through control, assistance, and iteration, a transformative process takes place, gradually shaping the stack of plates into something resembling architecture.

The focus should never be on the form, but on the iterative evolutions and the conceptual clarity that directs the progress, allowing for meaningful intervention along the way.

While the final product may be visually appealing to some, its merit lies in the ability to critique and steer the intermediate steps away from "what it looks like" and towards "what it does for its community and environment".

Re-mix ideas

Now we also have the have the freedom to start anywhere, as exemplified in the next few images. They take the work done by Hassell and reimagine it as a starting point for conversation. One series is expanding on the workplace terraces designed at the GSK Asia House in Singapore.

Forget about Pinterest

Over the past decade, Pinterest has become a creative crutch for most designers. “Relevance” algorithms have put the global design scene on a homogenous diet of reference images. Many design trends we have seen over the past few years—like arches, or soft pastels—are not accidental.??

The AI’s computing power should be able to help us generate original “mood” imagery better and faster than compiling a Pinterest board. Occasionally, a welcome surprise may come along.?

Find your own voice

An an interesting critique of generative AI has been its strong styling, progressively creating a homogenous and predictable “midjourney aesthetic” as outputs got refined with each new version launched.

Version 5.2 introduced the game-changing style tuner in November 2023, allowing creatives not only to create their own consistent visual style aligned with their sensibility, but also to control the degree to which this is applied.

Recently, in version 6.0 Alpha, the style reference parameter introduced a whole new level of control over the final output, blending multiple aesthetics seamlessly into one cohesive artwork.

With the Style Tuner slated to make a return, it is only natural to assume that with every new release, the agency and control given to the user will enable creativity to flourish, as every designer hones their own voice.

Unleash representation

If the medium is the message, exploring alternative representation styles could breathe life into the way we conceptualise and communicate our design intent.

This approach may provide a refreshing experience with fewer distractions. In a world saturated with photorealism, it is worth considering whether we can reintroduce old techniques to evoke a sense of nostalgia and creativity, continuing to blend them into current and future systems of representation.

Design from the experience outwards

Here I wanted to share a recent challenge that Jia Xin Chum and I gave ourselves: to illustrate and capture the intangibles – the essence of a future everyday Singapore in 2030.

Singapore’s 2030 Green Plan , turning Singapore into a City in Nature, charting a course towards a net-zero 2050 has set clear targets: every household within a 10-minute walk from a park, 1 million trees taking root each year, 75% mass public transport, a sprawling 360km of rail, 1,300km of cycling paths, increased reliance on solar energy, and the infusion of indoors biophilia reshaping how we work, live, and play. Add to this mix an ambitious 80% of new buildings achieving Super Low Energy standards and 30% of our country's agri-food needs cultivated locally.

Numbers not only measure but give form to our aspirations. They are the tangible markers of progress. Yet, what ripple effect do these quantifiable goals cast upon the everyday narrative of Singapore’s residents, both human and non-human?

Peering through the lens of experience, the bold 2030 targets cease to be mere imperatives; they become something truly exhilarating!

Envision a daily experience where every facet – living, working, learning, playing, commuting, and relaxing – unfolds in places like no other, within a city like no other. Place-makers, planners, policy crafters, innovators, designers, architects, landscape architects, and developers are entrusted with a pivotal role in this decade and beyond. A role that beckons exploration beyond the norm, painting outside the lines of metrics, fuelled by a vision that commences with a simple query: What will the experience of a day in the life of our city – a city in nature – look and feel like in 2030?

In conclusion, with the multitude of choices available, it is valuable to reflect on our direction and purpose as architects, designers, creatives, conveners, advocates, leaders and custodians of the built and natural environment.

This reflection helps us make more discerning decisions about which tools to use, how to use them, and innovate not only the product of our labour, but our labour and purpose itself.

The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organizations with which I am affiliated.