From Render to Reality
“Imagine/ A building designed by Zaha Hadid” is perhaps the most common prompt used by creatives at least once in Midjourney. An impressive artwork with fluid shapes and sharp lines would likely emerge and the engineers amongst us would likely challenge its structural viability. AI art generators are not able to incorporate physics, yet. However, using digital tools that do similar things is an established industry practice. It doesn’t take a lot to imagine that both worlds would meet at some point to prompt structurally sound AI renderings.
An AI Space With Soul?
Tadao Ando once said “Dwelling in a house is not only a functional issue, but also a spiritual one”. Creatives within the spatial domain understand that environment and spaces can evoke a wide range of human emotions, even beyond physical boundaries. As much confidence as I have in technology, I can’t imagine a prompt that can conceive Ando's original spiritual vision and zeitgeist into existence.
From Invite to Exit
Capturing the soul of a space will be a challenge for AI. Capturing our attention certainly won’t. Marketeers and researchers have for decades manipulated our behaviour. Bread is at the end of the supermarket. Products with optimised margins on eye level and candy at the register for our sugar cravings. Programs like Maket.Ai can optimize traffic and flow through spaces. Combine this with Chat-GPT whipping out user journeys and rundowns and you don’t look surprised anymore when your wedding planner is powered by AI.
AI as Navigator and Guide
Are you eavesdropping on guided tours? Soon, you won’t have to. Combining Large Language Model AI with audio guides will open a world of possibilities, not only for museums. Imagine your very own assistant navigating you through spaces like galleries or retail at your own pace and according to your own taste. It might tell you where those shoes you fancy are located, the specs of the last product you looked, in which isle you can find your favorite green juice and answer all your questions about its contents.
The Personalised Bubble
In Steven Spielberg’s 2002 Sci-fi, Minority Report, a future where technology can monitor, predict, and analyze human behavior, to create personalized content, is shown. Two decades later this doesn’t seem so futuristic anymore. But not without its pitfalls. Over-personalized spaces and experiences can lose sense of community and connection that comes from shared experiences. If AI only creates narrowly tailored experiences, it will drive people only further into their bubble.