Inside the world's first fully AI-driven architectural project
London-based architect Tim Fu has unveiled plans for seven luxury villas created entirely using AI-driven tools
Has the time come to “humbly recognise our human limitations”? Tim Fu, founder of Studio Tim Fu and former Zaha Hadid Architects designer certainly thinks so.
The architect behind the “world’s first” fully AI-driven architectural project, Fu unveiled his designs for Lake Bled Estate - seven luxury villas and the surrounding landscape on the shore of Lake Bled in Slovenia - last week.
And he has pulled no punches as to why, in a sea of debate and deliberation around the possible impact of AI on design and architecture, he has taken some (near) concrete action and put the tools to the test.
“Human mediocrity is under threat,” he said matter-of-factly at AI in Architecture, an in conversation event with Wallpaper*s Architecture and Environment Director Ellie Stathaki, last week. “For so long, humans have been the thinkers and the creators and machines have been the fabricators. AI has disrupted that.
“It has started to create better poetry than mediocre poets, better music than mediocre composers and, now, better visuals than mediocre visualisers. What I would say is that the people creating the highest standards are the ones who are going to drive that machine with their own values. For that reason I feel like we are still safe if we maintain the highest standards for the machines to either replicate or transform.”
This is why he has taken the bold move to deliberately “enable the machines” and “welcome them into the creative process.”
So, what does this mean for the future of design and the people working within it? And how can we ensure the right values are being fed into a machine we are edging ever closer towards trusting to help create the built world of the future?
Speaking from experience
Having now created a fully AI-driven project design, Fu is in the relatively unique position of being able to report back from the other side of the process.
Perhaps most reassuringly, he says that despite solely using AI-driven tools including generative models and algorithmic optimisation to create the design itself, his work on the 22,000 sq m Lake Bled site still required a significant, not to mention crucial, dose of human creativity.
Hand-drawn sketches were used to prompt those AI tools - “a very intentional, human endeavour” - and decisions around what should serve as inspiration and data points for the finished plans were also made by humans; in this instance Fu and members of his team. This involved, among other things, selecting examples of century-old designs for the AI tools to base the final design on. These included the work of Jože Plečnik, one of Slovenia’s best-known architects who worked on the original Lake Bled site back in 1909.
“We wanted to create a world-class hospitality experience while respecting the area’s cultural heritage ,” says Fu. “To do that we had to combine our own, human ideals with AI’s ability to bring the ideas of heritage and luxury hospitality together. We wanted it to interpret the Slovenian style of architecture in a way that is contemporary while also resonating with the past.”
AI as a superpower
Of course, the use of AI in architecture isn’t just a tool to optimise design. It also vastly accelerates the creative process. This brings with it a raft of efficiencies that Fu believes has made his practice more competitive than ever before.
“Our team can write a long list of things we have currently replaced with AI to make life easier and us faster,” he says. “First and foremost, CGIs. Traditionally we would approach a CGI company to produce renders for us. We would send our design and 3D model to the company, they would come back to us in a week, we would consult with them, they would then go away to fine-tune for another week, two weeks maybe. Now we do that in a day. Another example is our diffusion visualisation workflow, where we can plan architectural programming while AI generates design options in real time.
“AI has superpowered us and that’s why we are trying to spread the word to other design practices.”
That word is one of encouragement and reassurance but also urgency. Because while Fu’s ultimate takeaway is that AI “frees architects up to think more about human-centric design” - music to multiple ears here at Well-Placed if this is genuinely the case - those who don’t move fast enough might find themselves struggling to catch up.
The concerned evangelist
“AI in architecture is here,” says Fu. “It has arrived and people really do have to adopt now because we are starting to see jobs within this sector being replaced. Just because I sound like I am an evangelist for AI, that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned. I am concerned. As a studio we are concerned.
“This is why it is so imperative for us to understand that the workforce is going to change. Part of our process here is trying to work out how we deal with that and what roles of the future will look like alongside AI so we can be prepared.”
In the midst of a cacophony of noise and debate around AI in design and development, it is refreshing to see an architect put their money where their mouth is and test the available tools.
To be clear, Fu’s work - and the work of others including an announcement this week by US-based tech company cove on the launch of its new, AI-driven architecture practice - does not eliminate important (and largely unanswered) questions of regulation, client pushback and the ongoing debate around where we are in the AI Hype Cycle. But it does start to paint an increasingly clear picture of design practices of the future.
“AI in architecture is absolutely an inevitability,” says Fu. “It’s scary. But it is what it is. It’s time to get on with it.”
Emily Wright is a real estate, architecture and design journalist contributing to titles including The Times, Wallpaper*, The Spaces, WIRED and GQ. She is also Head of Content at CREtech.