Welcome to this week’s edition of Architecture Insights. A weekly newsletter on artificial intelligence for architects, landscape architects, and designers.

This week in AI

1. Midjourney now lets you create custom styles with the fine-tuner tool. (Read)

Summary: This means we can now create, or use an existing style we already like and tell the AI to continue outputting images with the same style.

2. Microsoft releases an AI-powered office assistant. (Read & Watch)

Summary: For teams that use Microsoft software like Teams or Outlook and want to incorporate AI into their workflow this is a good place to start. These are mostly baseline AI tools for productivity, automation, and time management. It currently goes for $30/month.

3. OpenAI held an event called “DevDay” on November 6th.

Summary: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E, announced big updates to its software. It is faster, cheaper, more customizable and improved in almost every aspect. Check out the keynote below.

AI for Sustainable Design

Artificial intelligence and sustainable design are two inevitable futures in our world as designers. Firstly, we must focus on sustainable design and construction to prolong the existence of our built and natural environment. Secondly, AI development is advancing rapidly and it is here to stay.

As a result, AI can help in various tasks ranging from optimizing energy efficiency, selecting sustainable materials, predicting environmental impacts, and automating tasks to save time and money on resources.

These are examples of AI's capabilities to benefit us with sustainable design and construction but truth be told, many of the existing tools at the time of writing this (November 2023) are not “all-in-one” tools for sustainable design.

This is not to point out the inadequacies of these existing tools rather to acknowledge that 99% of them are still in early development and require patience from users.

It is more likely that we see ‘sustainable features’ in a range of tools rather than just having one tool that focuses purely on sustainability.

A few examples include:

Maket.ai which can assist with design by giving recommendations for materials, costing, floor plan generation, and zoning/regulation reviews.

We also have tools like openspace.ai which has over 750 million square feet of video in its database of building interiors and exteriors.

Opensapce software enables teams to analyze progress, identify discrepancies, and make informed decisions during the preconstruction phase.

The advanced AI algorithms automatically map images to project plans, eliminating the need for manual data entry and accelerating the analysis process.

Cove.tools an AI-powered design platform that helps architects analyze the environmental impact of their designs, including energy efficiency5.

It can provide real-time feedback on a building's energy performance, allowing designers to make informed decisions during the design process.

Mapillary is a platform that utilizes AI and computer vision to extract geospatial information from street-level imagery.

Landscape architects can leverage Mapillary to access a vast collection of site data, such as vegetation, pedestrian pathways, and street furniture, to inform their sustainable design decisions.

Resources

A curated list of free AI tools. (Toolify)

University of Pennsylvania on how businesses use artificial intelligence. (Read)

Midjourney breaks down how to fine-tune your architectural styles. (Read)

Parametric architecture opens submissions to AI creative challenge 3.0. (Explore)

AI Image of the week

Thank you for reading this week’s issue, check past issues here. Share this newsletter with colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in the combined world of architecture and artificial intelligence.

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Until next Friday,

A.I.