Can computers design buildings & really replace architects?
We’re living in a world where computers can calculate our taxes, drive our cars, and book our holidays. Could it also design our buildings? Many argue that computers don’t have an aesthetic sense as humans do. But with machine learning, if computers are fed with the right parameters, will they be able to recognize what people find aesthetically pleasing.
In this article, we attempt to explore different facets of building design and try to find out if computer and a human architect will compete or complement each other?
Building Information Model (BIM), allows architects to create a complete building design in documentation package. Plans, sections and elevations can be produced from a single unified model. Such models can contain many project-related data, synchronized with live preview function of the building model. For architects, BIM software is a single production tool, which comes close to automated design.
Automation does not degrade, let alone replace, the creativity of architectural practice. Rather it is helping architects modernize their legacy business and reform architecture as a stronger profession in the digital era.
Computers are very good at solving defined tasks, like engineering calculations, and can make even some judgments on quality. However, computers will not be able to composite the five human senses anytime soon and really understand a building’s poetry of emotion. “As designers sit down and start thinking about designing a building, they think about the five human senses. Also, the human architect needs to communicate the design intent to the client, explain why he or she chose certain things, and then evaluate the responses of the client’s emotions and business sense to the design. That is a human interaction that needs to happen.
However, just because certain types of creative occupations can’t easily be replaced, doesn’t mean that their industries won’t see disruption.
I always draw this analogy: Musicians have embraced new instruments from the electric guitar to synthesizers and onwards to automated composing tools, as delivery of their outputs has shifted from albums to streaming. Yet the role of the composer remains unaltered.
Overall, by automating aspects of the design process, such as creating multidisciplinary digital libraries that contain fabrication-ready information, more time can be spent by an architect on the design effort that makes a building unique in response to the client’s brief and relevant to its environment. With the repeatable tasks that don’t add value to the design process being automated, the overall process will create better and faster information for manufacturing.
