Yes, its another social media post on Generative AI and Midjourney! Whether AI in the design space fills you with dread, cynicism or excitment its a great time to explore and imagine a future of design and Generative AI tools in augmenting human design abilities and redefining the design process.
Prompt: editorial photo of The Living Room - This bright and airy space is the heart of the house, with its open plan layout and expansive windows that let in plenty of natural light. The furniture is modern with comfortable sofas and chairs made from sustainable materials. The living room also features a large sliding glass door that opens onto a spacious outdoor deck. Jeames Hanley - Midjourney
The world of architecture and design is in the messy beginnings of what looks to be a significant disruption as a slew of artificially intelligent tools challenge industry and project processes that have remained largely unchanged for decades. One such technology is Midjourney, a generative AI text to image / image to image tool that is extending the creative boundaries for architects and designers.
Digitisation is nothing new for the Architectural industry which has struggled with retooling and technology advances for decades. A mentor of mine and a long time friend in the digital architecture space mentioned to me this week over coffee "digital and architecture are not seperate entities. Every architectural practice is a digital practice these days". I cant help but wonder whether some still mistakenly believe architecture and technology are mutually exclusive.
Midjourney is particularly useful for architects and designers who can use simple text based inputs to create imagery and explore design criteria. At competition stage before pen is put to paper or 'mouse to Revit', designers can use the platform to explore styles and generate moods, images and base level concept designs to assist in informing and exploring the design language or style for their project. Platforms such as this pose the question: Can design itself be reconfigured as a process of searching for a possible outcome using goals and constraints instead of the traditional form finding exercise of the past? Could AI platforms such as Midjourney take those goals and constraints in the fom of text, image or sketch inputs and return 'designs' for the architect to build on and develop?
Prompt: the gallery space where artwork is hanging on the walls of an architecturally designed art gallery in a misty lit forest mossy where the facade is straight glass panels and the roof is a low hung pink hue coloured cloud. Jeames Hanley - Midjourney
Midjourney and AI image generation tools will not replace designers or the process of design. They will simply insert themselves rather unabashedly into the design process. Architects need not worry about fears of replacement if they recognise these platforms for what they are. That is tools to adobt and get a handle on instead of threats to their existence. AI doomerism is quite loud when the current social media messaging is adopt now or be left behind. Rather unhelpful and one dimensional in my opinion. I believe generative AI platforms such as Midjourney will simply be another tool in the tool box to call upon at the right time and for the right purpose in design ideation, expanding creativity and assisting in exploring design aesthic from a different perspective. Architectural competition work is largely unpaid (until you win the competition) so I believe there will be an efficiency and effectivess gained here by calling on AI in the early stages of a project.
Prompt: An interiors mood board that shows biophillic design principles planting and greenery and neutral colours accented by brushed gold fixtures photography. Jeames Hanley - Midjourney
Another benefit of using Midjourney is the ease in which design iteration is completed. The benefit in calling upon generative AI image creation tools is that you can use them at any stage. Midjourney could be used as the first tool to generate design ideas or potential look and feel imagery. A designer could then quite quickly iterate and refine their chosen image by creating variants and upscaled versions to explore their design in detail. On the other hand a designer could start with sketches and feed those to Midjourney to get complete renders and visualisation from simple pencil, ink or digital stylus sketches. The flexibility offered by these platforms is where the true power lies. You can call upon it at any stage with a simple sketch or a few lines of text to visualise your ideas.
An architects handsketch from a digital tablet sketch paired with the text prompt: Photograph of a curved building facade with vertical timber slats that lets light softly into the building space behind with eucalyptus trees in the foreground and people moving past the building in the foreground on a clear sunny day. Jeames hanley - Midjourney
Whilst these tools are sure to unlock effectiveness and efficiency in the design space it should not result in architects being paid less or punished for working more efficiently. This is where our industry needs to engage in the conversation about billable hours vs charging based on value created. Architecture fees are largely set aside as a number of hours required per project stage. For example; 100 hours allowed for concept stage, 300 for design development etc. Based on this method an architect only gets 100 hours to deliver the best design. How can you put a time constraint on design? You're not geting the best design, you're getting the design that the architect was able to produce in a set amount of time.
There are some that look at these platforms positively and are keen to leverage them for the benefits they bring to their workflows and processes. Others I fear are falling victim to technology based bias called technological miopia. That is underestimating the potential of tomorrow's applications by evaluating them against today's enabling technologies. In other words sceptics are unable to concede that future technology may be more radically powerful than technology today because they are unable to see past shortcomings of today's technology.
Im a huge advocate for referencing augmented intelligence over artificial intelligence. The most productive way forward is to see the relationship between human and AI as one of symbiosis and not competition where AI operates alongside human intelligence (HI).
As always I look forward to guiding those around me on the fact they can gain superpowers by using these tools. Afterall if you're not driving the tool, the tool is driving you. Lets master our tools.
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