Nina Isabelle Onia
Professor Doris Huber
ENGL 109W-03
21 September 2022
Project 1: Proposal
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool that has been implemented into various occupations as its popularity grows today. Some jobs have completely replaced human workers with automated robots. Other jobs utilize AI to gather information and carry out tasks to aid human workers. Architects have recently delved into AI's potential and constraints on architectural projects. Interior architects need to collect plenty of data before filling in the empty space of a project. Data includes the following: input from the client, the project site, the demographics of the surrounding area, the budget, bids from potential buyers, laws, and building codes. AI can collect data for architects, eliminating the hassle of manually gathering information. This allows architects to design and develop their work—floor plans, sections, elevations, etc—more quickly and efficiently. AI can determine the standard weather conditions of a site by analyzing climate data and generating designs based on photos of real-life projects in a database. As versatile as AI is, architects need to test this tool to determine its accuracy and outputs; professionals can’t rely on AI-centric architecture if they don’t know how well the AI will cooperate.
I am a third-year student at Sacramento State. My major is Interior Architecture and I plan to get a Bachelor’s degree. I have finished enough design and architecture prerequisites to advance to the upper division courses. My coursework includes the following: hand-drawn abstract designs, computer-aided design (CAD) floorplans and elevations, physical models, slideshows presentations, research papers on selected projects, and written responses to assigned readings (textbooks, articles, journals, etc.) These assignments focused on important, ancient time periods for architecture, design principles, and green design. I was intrigued by architectural history and green design and wanted to research a similar topic. I wanted to write a paper about an innovation in architecture that my courses haven’t covered. That’s when I settled on AI implementation. I don’t know much about AI usage in architecture because I only looked into the topic recently. All I know as of now is that architectural projects have used AI to gather data and steadily speed up workflow. After reading denser journals on the topic, I also know there are caveats to using AI compared to other means of collecting data.
I will be collecting information on my topic from case studies. These case studies should include the methods, results, and conclusions of the intended architectural project or study. Interior architects—and architects in general—have to do a lot of reading and note-taking. Their knowledge and later research in the field revolves around the various code books, case studies, and projects that other architects have published. Architects need to know the purpose of their project’s design by examining the work of others who’ve created similar designs. Similarly, I need to know the purpose of AI by examining the work of others who’ve tinkered with that tool. My sources will be up to date so the information I gathered will coincide with technological advancements today.
Throughout the research process, I will focus on the extent to which AI can be used as an architectural tool. Research questions could include “what tasks can artificial intelligence be used to help architects create pre-design, development, and construction documents?” and “is there a significant difference in workflow and output between an AI-aided project and a typical project?” I will phrase my key terms carefully. Simply typing “AI architecture” has led me to articles discussing architects who design AI instead of buildings and AI used for networking architecture. I will add key terms to describe architectural projects (e.g. residential, commercial, landscape, etc.) and imply that I’m seeking out recent studies (e.g. “innovative” and “modern”). I could also search “pros and cons” for my topic to find articles talking about AI in a more general scope. My annotated bibliography will be written in MLA format and my final project will be a literature review.