Technology

This is the best summary I could come up with:

One second they form rows of towers, next they morph into low-rise courtyards, then they flip back into long slender slabs, before cycling through hundreds of other iterations, in a hypnotic high-speed ballet of bristling buildings.

Image-making tools such as Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have allowed the effortless creation of seductive visions: skyscrapers in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, fantasy mash-ups of sci-fi and art nouveau, squidgy marshmallow staircases, buildings made of rubbish.

Tsigkari’s team has also developed a simulation engine that allows realtime analysis of floor plans – showing how well connected one part of a building is to another – giving designers instant feedback on the implications of moving a wall or piece of furniture.

Just as deepfake technology makes it possible for dead actors to be resurrected in new roles, could we see a world where the back catalogues of deceased architects are used to generate cover versions of their work, regurgitating counterfeited classics in a nauseating feedback loop?

Having since worked for central government on digitising the planning system, Mills has now co-founded Blocktype, an AI-powered tool for developers and planners, aimed at simplifying the process and ultimately reducing land speculation.

“The idea behind Blocktype is that it can give you a ballpark sense of what’s possible on a site, providing sketch layouts and viability appraisals.” Mills stresses it is not a replacement for architects, but a tool to help developers think spatially when trying to determine what to pay for land.

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