Chetwoods Director Reza Esmaeeli discusses the challenges and influences of AI on Architectural design at the Sustainable Design Summit in China

Chetwoods Director Reza Esmaeeli was recently invited to participate in a high-level round table discussion on ‘How Can Designers and Architects Fully Utilize AI in Design and Architecture While Integrating the Humanistic Aspect of Design?’ at the third Sustainable Design Summit at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Centre in China.

The summit brought together over 60 speakers, leaders from various fields, to explore and debate innovative solutions for sustainable development empowered by design, with particular focus on Artificial Intelligence in Design and Construction. The round table discussion took place on the third day, when the summit focused on ‘Future Spaces – The Intersection of Technology and Sustainability.’

A keynote speech on this theme by Wang Xin, Deputy Director and Chief Architect of China at Arup, on ‘Scientific Experimental Architectural Design in the age of AI’, took the AI Laboratory Project of the World Top Scientists Community in the Lingang New Area of Shanghai Free Trade Zone as an example to provide an in-depth interpretation of future living and working spaces.

Following the keynote speech, Reza participated in a roundtable discussion that developed the question of ‘How Can Designers and Architects Fully Utilize AI in Design and Architecture While Integrating the Humanistic Aspect of Design?’, during which he discussed and shared his experience and unique insights on AI in Design and Construction with Erez Ella and Hongtao Wei, Co-Founder and Design Director of Hanhai Architecture.

The discussion focused on two key questions:

Q: For architects, the virtual world is like a light at the end of the tunnel, which is an infinite realm. With the continuous progress of AI technology, the future AI architecture industry will usher in more possibilities and inspiration. As an architect, what changes and influences do you think AI is bringing to the architectural design industry? In what way?

Reza’s response covered the role of the visualisation abilities of AI in Urbanism (enhancing already available data-driven urbanism methods and tools by adding more prediction abilities and improving their output capabilities); environmental analysis (improving the tools to go beyond analysis of their given input and adding the ability of proposing smart changes and improvements); and human behaviour and emotions, the ability to assess designs against human emotions and behaviour and propose intelligent improvements.

Reza quoted the example of Chetwoods’ current research, which is leveraging cutting-edge technology to analyse human emotional responses to our built environment. He also noted the benefits of AI in terms of speed and efficiency, allowing increased optioneering abilities for architects to refine their concepts and respond to contextual variations in a global market to explore and develop the most appropriate typologies.

Q: When people mention AI, they are always excited and afraid. In many cases, we enjoy the convenience brought by the technological innovation of AI, but at the same time, we are afraid of the human crisis brought by AI. People always think that the products designed by AI technology and software are novel and futuristic, but also cold and stereotypical. In today’s society, people are increasingly concerned about humanized experience, empathetic space, and healthy and sustainable environment. How can we make full use of AI in design and architecture to build a humanized space?

Reza responded that it is vital to ensure that human needs and behaviour are always at the forefront of input for AI training. At Chetwoods, in appropriate situations AI is used as a tool to interpret the creative thinking of designers, adding an extra dimension to preliminary concepts. AI can also be used to facilitate the creation of smarter buildings which can adapt to users’ habits and behaviour patterns to improve human experiences and wellbeing in the built environment.

Reza concluded that the collaboration between human creativity and machine intelligence is not about replacing architects but empowering us to explore new horizons in our work and push boundaries. This shift not only supplements design capabilities but also opens doors to new possibilities in the architecture and construction sectors.

Our Chetwoods China team is led by Laurie Chetwood, Chetwoods’ Chairman, Tim Ward, Chetwoods’ CEO and a specialist in the industrial and logistics sector, Anny Fan, Chetwoods’ Head of China Business Development and Reza Esmaeeli, Director at Chetwoods.

Contact our China team directly:

Anny Fan

Head of China Business Development

WeChat: wxid_76te8uirmig912

Anny.Fan@chetwoods.com

Guangzhou, China

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