New Delhi-based architect Manas Bhatia asked AI to help realize a new organic vision of future architecture.
For his conceptual project, AI x Future Cities, Bhatia turned to an artificial intelligence imaging tool, Midjourney, that generates elaborate pictures based on written prompts.
Using a series of text descriptions that featured phrases like;
- futuristic towers
- utopian technology
- symbiotic
- bioluminescent material
Midjourney created a series of digital images that Bhatia further tweaked.
It can take up to 20 minutes to make each of the surreal artworks and Bhatia refined his descriptions almost 100 times per project, editing and adding to the text until he achieved the desired results before cleaning up the images with Photoshop.
Bhatia said,
The trial-and-error part is the most fun. We use AI to create images and, in the process, the AI trains itself and improves over time.”
In another project, titled Symbiotic Architecture, Bhatia imagined a future in which buildings are made from living materials. Using words like “giant” and “hollowed,” he produced images of what he called a “utopian future” in which apartments are formed inside redwood-sized trees.
He says it was inspired by Hyperion, a 380-foot-tall redwood in California thought to be the world’s tallest living tree, but also drew on his own day-to-day work at Indian architecture firm Ant Studio, whose projects include retrofitting buildings with new facades to encourage natural ventilation and reduce energy consumption.
Bhatia said,
The inspiration (was the idea) of a building’s ‘skin’ being organic and inspired by nature, and how evaporative cooling and transpiration takes place so that (towers can) regulate their own temperature throughout the day.
If we could create building materials to be organic, and to live and grow, the building could ventilate itself through these natural processes.”
For Bhatia, AI is just another tool.
Art is completely open to interpretation. And an artist can use any kind of tool there is to create art. Anyone can use AI, but they won’t be able to achieve as good a result as a creative person.”
It has tremendous potential. At our studio, we tried using AI to generate mood board images for a client presentation, and that went very well… In the near future, architects and designers combined with AI would be something to hope for.”
Bhatia see a future where AI can generate 3D designs and is integrated into the software that architects use to model their creations.
(Images, Courtesy Manas Bhatia; via CNN)
