Informed creativity and fabrication in architecture and engineering
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated fabrication are becoming increasingly relevant in architecture and engineering. AI enables machines to learn, reason, solve problems, perceive their environment, and use data collected with every move. This paradigm shift affects not only the architectural design processes, but also the adoption of parametric principles and computational methods in the design, analysis and construction processes used by engineers.
Production processes in the construction industry are shifting towards computer-controlled fabrication, which allows us not only to control but also to observe respective operations and material behaviour. Integrating AI, digitised fabrication and assembly processes into design and production approaches provides significant potential to increase productivity in the construction industry, enabling various approaches to design, architecture and engineering to emerge. Furthermore, it sets grounds for a circular economy in the construction sector, where the reuse of construction elements potentially articulates a design focus, through observing elements over their lifetime, reclaiming them from unused buildings, and repurposing them.
In this conference, we encourage a discussion on the following key questions:
- Does AI enable machines to create design and fabrication processes, either as a symbolic approach or a constructivist approach?
- Is AI able to “understand” material behaviour or design intents?
- Do we consider AI generative design processes to be creative, and if so, do their results hold aesthetic potential in the sense of Max Bense, or are they results of “machine hallucination” with little connection to the practical world?
- Does design, as a cognitive activity, exist within the reach of AI?
- How does AI change the understanding and practice of design as a cognitive activity?
- Will automated fabrication replace manual trades?
- How can traditional crafts be integrated into robotic fabrication?
- AI may be able to reveal the “how” of the design and fabrication process, but in what way can it be considered a tool for a better understanding of these processes?
The conference explores theoretical and applied approaches to AI and automated fabrication in design, architecture and engineering. It examines the role of AI in relation to design and fabrication processes as well as its potential for a circular construction economy. It encourages critical reflection on the opportunities, innovative pathways, as well as the limitations, challenges, ethical implications, and risks of AI, automated fabrication and the reuse of construction elements.
Subject areas
Topics include but are not limited to (alphabetical order):
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Design and Built Environment
- Building Information Modelling and Digital Twins Data Acquisition, Big Data
- Design Concepts, Strategies and Experimentation
- Design Tools Development and Application
- Digital Design and Construction for a circular economy
- Digital Heritage and Conservation
- Education in Computational Design and Digital Fabrication
- Human-Computer Interaction in Design
- Internet of Things for the Built Environment
- Optimization and Form Finding
- Parametric and Generative Design
- Robotic and automated Fabrication
- Responsive and adaptive Design
- Shape, Form, Geometry and Material Studies
- Simulation, Prediction and Evaluation
- Theory in Computational Design and Digital Methods
- Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality in Architecture
We intend to organise the papers within the following session themes:
- Artistic / architectural practice application
- Artificial intelligence / machine learning
- Collaboration / Interaction
- Computational education and pedagogy
- Design tool development
- Digital heritage and Conservation
- Fabrication / Construction
- Internet of Things (IoT) / Big Data
- Materials / form / optimisation
- Theory and computational aesthetics