Writing and Photo Editing by Ari Adams

Artificial intelligence and neural networks have seemingly become the two big buzz-phrases of 2022. From Tesla’s ostensibly omnipresent self-driving cars to Dall-E-Mini’s fifteen seconds of meme-fame, AI has seeped its way deep into industry, popular culture, and the arts through the recent explosion of user-friendly AI platforms. For architects and interior designers, however, access to publicly available and user-friendly AI-platforms presents a substantial change in an industry which relies heavily on initial project designs and imagery in order to find funding and start construction. Gaudism.AI, an architectural project spearheaded by Catalan designer Ariadna Giménez, exemplifies these changes in the industry.

Giménez’s Gaudism.AI project uses Midjourney—an open-sourced text-to-image artificial intelligence program—to create futuristic architectural and interior design concepts inspired by the work of Antoni Gaudí, the world-famous Catalan, modernist architect. The designs that Giménez creates for the Gaudism.AI project are explosive yet subtle, futuristic yet primitive, and familiar yet completely unique. The cave-like structures teem with vegetal life while emitting both natural and artificial light—evoking feelings of primitive comforts in a modern world. “The first humans that lived in the world, they would go seek shelter in caves for a reason,” says Giménez, believing that nature should be one of the first places architects should find inspiration when designing living spaces. The reason why humanity has a tendency to destroy nature and why we currently find ourselves in a climate crisis, Giménez believes, is because we see nature as something separate from human life and the concept of the home. In many ways, the Gaudism.AI project seeks to change the discourse surrounding the notion of comfort being in conflict with nature through the use of modern design.

But it isn’t just the conversation around environmentalist living spaces that Giménez feels that AI can change. She knows that AI will change the entire workflow of architects and designers. “I think Midjourney is a very good initial step for architects and designers to start the exploration for their projects,” Giménez says. While many architects begin ideas for projects with pencil sketches, Giménez feels that AI can give architects an upperhand in the initial phases of a project due to the detail, lighting, geometries, and materials that AI can render for them seemingly instantaneously.

Not only will it help on the creative front but it can also work as a cost and time cutting measure for architects who need to render 3D models of their designs. “Right now, 3D is a very time consuming and expensive process. So if AI can make that faster and more efficient, designers and architects can actually spend more time designing and coming up with ideas, rather than sitting and doing the 3D,” says Giménez, who believes that rendering architectural 3D models is more of a learned skill than a creative endeavor. She feels that it will help architects spend more time on conceiving of projects rather than laboring over them. “You need that energy,” she says, “to actually put it into the idea of the project, into the concept of the project.”

Despite the forward thinking concept of Giménez’s Gaudism.AI project and her hopes for the future of AI in the architectural workplace, it is her raw designs and vision that make the project truly special. The buildings she has created are not only unique and at times odd but they are objectively beautiful and deeply rooted in both her Catalan culture and global architectural tradition. She plans to use the power of AI to construct homes and furniture in the real world piece by piece, project by project. By using the work of Gaudí as inspiration, Midjourney as a tool, and primitive environmentalism as a goal, Giménez has found an architectural and visual style that is very much her own.

You can find more images from the Gaudism.AI project here.

Nov 16 Architecture: Gaudism.AI

Nov 17 From Our Archives: An-My Lê: The Intimacy of Distance

Nov 15 Moment: Jero Gonzales

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