Hank Haeusler presents Architecture in the Age of A.I

The lecture introduces Second Machine Age Technologies such as Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence that are dominating discussions of the future of work in most professions around the world and in Australia. While several professions have embraced Second Machine Age Technologies into their business early and in a deeper level the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) Industry is still in an infant stage. Yet there are clear signs on the horizon that venture capital investors in Silicon Valley or companies like Alphabet (Googles mother company) turn their attention to the construction industry, hence enforcing a change of the AEC industry from the outside at a rapid speed. Through our teaching, research and software development at UNSW Computational Design we hope to offer local company graduates that bring much needed computational and computing skills into the profession; develop new knowledge on living with 21st century technologies for the AEC industry; and develop and program platforms that change the way architecture and urban design is produced and documented. This lecture on Urban Design will discuss upcoming issues and challenges and presents the development of a synthetic design method; a tool named ‘Giraffe’, a two-sided network platform for the AEC industry that gives non-computational designers access to computational tools that assists the synthetic design method and UrbanAI a test case that combines machine learning and Computational Design for a rapid development of cities. Presented Thursday 22 August 2019