The Role of the Architect vs Architectural Software in the Posthuman Era

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DC I/O 2021 Paper by FLAVIAN BERAR.
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Abstract

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to unfold, digital tools and environments are becoming even more indispensable in the field of architecture. Architects are increasingly relying on software capabilities in developing architectural design. Consequently, they seem to become more computer-like in their daily task performance, whilst software is continuing to improve and become more intelligent.

In this context, the human architectural designer is leaping into the posthuman era, a time when their activity is conditioned by machines, whilst intelligence continues to be unleashed and embedded beyond the biological body.

As intelligence is displaced from the human to the software entity, the current value and role of human input into architectural design seems to be at risk of decreasing. This paper seeks to identify and investigate whether the Architect should seek new roles and provide new kind of values in architectural design and in parallel whether the current utilitarian approach of architectural software may in fact jeopardise the future Architect from fulfilling both their creative and rational potential and the subsequent value it could bring to the profession. Is the Architect becoming a pet of AI and could an alternative paradigm or system of values in the framework of architectural software offer a different, perhaps more beneficial output to the profession and to humanity as a whole?

Presentation

Left Video Recording.

Conference Paper

Left Conference Paper.

Keywords

AI, Architect, Creativity, Displacement, Intelligence, Human, Machine, Software, Utilitarianism, Value

Reference

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47330/DCIO.2021.BSJG3760

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