I interviewed a BAC alumni that has been working at Zephyr Architects for several years now. His firm has expertise in, mostly, multifamily homes in the Boston area.

SUMMARY

The interviewee is passionate about human-centric design and saving time in the architectural design process. He expressed a keen interest in both functionality and aesthetics, defining design as a combination of both. The interviewee sees AI as a powerful tool for generating designs quickly but acknowledges potential disadvantages, such as oversimplification and a potential shift in architectural expertise.

He finds the idea of AI creating technical drawings exciting, foreseeing potential benefits in allowing architects to focus on more innovative aspects of their work. The interviewee believes AI's integration into architectural production is imminent, with larger firms already utilizing it to some extent. On the question of ownership, the interviewee emphasizes the human touch in implementing AI-generated designs and believes the tools are not currently strong enough to claim sole ownership of the work. He discusses the challenge of balancing AI use with maintaining a human experience in design.

If not in the architectural field, the interviewee would likely pursue industrial or graphic design, particularly in the context of the growing influence of screens on our reality. He expressed excitement about being involved in the design of the virtual world.

What are you passionate about?

I am passionate about good design.  I guess this is kind of a leading answer, but the human design. You know, a human approach to design and not taking design for granted in our everyday lives. 

If you can save time in the design process, how would you fill that extra time?

I kind of have a context of what we're talking about. I think if I were to save time, it would be on secondary tasks that we do in the architecture industry management tasks, and documentation tasks.

It ends up taking quite a bit of our time -- the production of drawings? I think we are in the service industry and the deliverable for this industry tends to be drawings and the time that it takes to put those drawings together I think is something that, if we could save time on that, it would be great. 

And if it was not work, how would you spend your free time?

If it wasn't work -- traveling yeah. Traveling is probably what I would do.

How do you define design?

It's a really good question.  I think something that is functional, but beautiful and it's in its own right.

Something that serves its purpose in a really sort of meaningful way.  Something as simple as a cup.  But  I think there are two parts to it. Designing a cup that works really well, that holds the water,  but also a cup that looks beautiful in space.  I  think that I think the combination of both those things is designed.

How do you define a designer?

Somebody that is willing to put the effort into those things. I think there are people that would want just a cup that holds the water. And I think a designer is somebody that thinks. How can this cup hold water better and be beautiful at the same time? Or how can we improve this?

Would you call yourself a designer?

I would probably characterize myself as a designer before I did architecture. I think the goal beyond architecture is to sort of design. I happen to be in the world of designing spaces, but I think designing everything is important to me and what I would characterize myself as.

My partner always laughs that I feel like I could design everything. Architects get that claim that we think that we can design everything. She's a jewelry designer and I feel like I could do that. And for some reason, architects tend to think that they can do that.

You said that you would classify yourself as a designer
be you were in architecture, do you mind going in more depth about that?

I think it's what I've always wanted to do and always had a passion for since I was young -- I guess this is a kind of architecture, but a little bit of interior design. But even as a child, I was always changing the layout of my room and spent a lot of time thinking about that.

I think since a young age, I've always sort of considered myself as a designer.

What are your thoughts on image-generative A.I. being able to produce beautiful images in a short amount of time?

I think it's a really powerful tool for generating designs, allowing designers and people to utilize those tools to get past creative and innovative blocks. 

I do think that there are disadvantages, like, how simplified these tools can get and what they can cause. They can cause a refocus of sort of our expertise as architects. It can also dictate our work more if a client approaches us with AI, and we're basically being asked to replicate what they have brought in.

I think, at the moment, it's a really powerful tool for us to generate ideas really fast but these tools can get easier and easier to use, that it can become a disadvantage. 

What are your thoughts if A.I. was advanced enough to create technical drawings?

I think that's a really exciting thought.  Because it would allow us to -- similar to sort of it being a disadvantage in the sort of generative design aspects of the tool -- if you're able to utilize  AI to help in production, you can sort of refocus your, your expertise into something that you might be more passionate about, or solving harder problems. 

And being allowed more time for innovation with obviously the disadvantage being of that that as an industry, it becomes more competitive and there is job displacement because. I feel like it's such a large portion of our time spent in production that if you remove that entirely it becomes a more competitive field.

Do you see this in the near future, AI being able to produce technical drawings and AI being in the production side of architectural design?

Yeah, I do. I don't think we're far from it, and I think that they're already [utilizing AI].  I think at this point the utilization of AI is not a luxury that all firms have, but larger firms are utilizing it in some ways. And we can do more or less some of the tasks that I'm sort of thinking about right now, like using Grasshopper, Python, and Dynamo where you're automating -- tagging and automating schedules.

I think that's kind of already underway. It's very realistic that it happens soon and it just becomes a simpler tool.  It is more accessible by everyone in the industry. Right now it is kind of a luxury item. If you have a team that is an expert in sort of utilizing and implementing these codes and algorithms to be able to do those things.

Do you believe the work belongs to the person if AI was used to create it? 

Yeah, it's like thinking through and the way that we're utilizing those tools. In our practice, it's very much just like it would be like somebody giving you a hand sketch and then you turn that into a building and like, 'Who has ownership of that building.'

I don't think that the tools are good enough or strong enough. I think they make mistakes. They're not based in reality. It's more of like -- thinking like a mid-journey of generative design -- it's just like they're a collection of all of these images that don't really make sense as a composite. So it's essentially to me, like a napkin sketch that we're turning into a building. It requires so much more work beyond the sort of idea. And even if you're utilizing it to generate ideas the implementation of those ideas is where the ownership happens.

How do we keep the human experience, while utilizing AI as a tool?

I think that there are ways to do it. And I think if  I think AI is really [exciting] and I'm really excited for it.

It can open up time for us to focus on those things. About focusing on how tactile elements of a building will be how light enters a building instead of focusing five days on creating schedules. So, I think AI has a place in our industry to allow us room to innovate and to think further about architecture. 

I think it's just sort of like, how far do we want to allow into our space?

What would you do if you were not in the architectural field? 

I guess the easy answer would be industrial design or graphic design. I feel like graphic design,  especially as we're becoming more sort of aligned with screens and more of our reality is influenced by screens. I think there's a large importance of what is happening or who's designing and thinking about the human aspect of design sort of in that world as well. 

So I think that's exciting. It's like I've sort of directed my life towards.  Architecture -- which is where we live in most of the time -- but we are starting to sort of direct our time and attention to it, like a virtual world. And I think it'd be exciting to be a part of the design of that.