Archinect - Features

You, Me, and DALL-E: On the Relationship Between Architecture, Data, and Artificial Intelligence

2023-05-01T08:00:00-04:00

Thirty years after the thaw of the last 'AI Winter,' the landscape of artificial intelligence is one of a forest in full bloom. On a weekly basis throughout 2023, new tools have been released taking advantage of the latest advances in machine learning algorithms, while existing software and applications scramble to maintain relevance by incorporating our new AI companions into their interfaces. Architects and designers have also turned their creative energy to investigating how AI-powered image generators can imagine new styles, new experiences, and new worlds, while also exploring how AI chatbots can suggest sustainability strategies, inform fee negotiations, and aid office management.

How did this AI forest come to be? Who are its caretakers? How might it continue to grow in the future? What is its relationship to the design and operation of the built environment? In our search for answers, we speak with one expert spanning architectural practice and academia on how designers can...

'As a Black Architecture Firm, We Cannot Ignore the Fact That We Are Rare': A Conversation with Think Wilder Architecture

2023-02-24T08:15:00-05:00

Architecture licensure and running a practice are topics widely discussed on Archinect. While everyone's path is different the experiences of firm leaders, regardless of their firm size, offer a look into the realities of being an architect, leader, and entrepreneur.

"Having my own practice has allowed me to use the business as a platform to create more than just architecture. I think architects have skill sets that transcend architecture." These are the words of Stephen Wilder, Principal of Think Wilder Architecture. The Howard University and Carnegie Mellon University graduate runs a New Jersey/New York-based architecture practice that's keen on balancing work expectations while showcasing the value architects provide to their communities.

For our latest installment of Archinect's Studio Snapshots, we chat with Wilder on his path to architecture, the obstacles of licensure, challenging the industry's work culture, and how he defines the role of an architect.

‘As Compton Natives, It Is Our Lifelong Goal to Give Back to the Community’ — Gallery 90220’s Founder on Empowering a New Generation of Black and Brown Artists in Los Angeles

2021-08-05T11:54:00-04:00

A new Black-owned and operated gallery has just opened in South Los Angeles, sprouting out of a vibrant artistic revival in Compton, California, and paving the way for an urban renaissance centered around the artistic expression of Black and Brown creatives.

University of Washington M.Arch Graduate Michelle Hook on Using "Speculative Fiction as a Queer Tactic to Disorient and Deconstruct the Norm in Architecture"

2020-06-25T14:03:00-04:00

Michelle Hook is an M.Arch graduate from the University of Washington College of Built Environment. Archinect was able to chat with Hook and dive into her thesis project, "Step into my Queerhouse: Queering the Now/Future." Hook explores architecture's role in representation and how speculative fiction can help change the built environment's perspectives.

Hook shares, "...to construct a new architecture, one that may be inherently queer, speculative fiction becomes the tactic of world-building, free from the constraints and the framework of the normative. The final action of imagining, and therefore queering, creates the new world." She also discusses her take on finding a job during a pandemic and her plans for staying sharp as opportunities present themselves.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a new virtual for...

The New Wave of Female Powerhouses are Pushing the Boundaries of Professional Practice

2019-03-08T09:45:00-05:00

The gradually increasing presence of a diverse range of practitioners across the architectural profession has provided a stronger platform for women to showcase their work, leadership, and innovation. In remembering the past, pioneering female architects such as Denise Scott Brown and Norma Merrick Sklarek have paved the way for women like Kazuyo Sejima, Dame Zaha Hadid, and Jeanne Gang to push the boundaries of representation in the field. Further, architecture's new class of female architects are learning from their predecessors and making moves for what architecture will become in 2019. With discussions of the #MeToo movement, equitable labor practices, and diversity weighing heavily on the field, the profession still has a long way to go.

SoapBox: Representation

2017-11-29T09:00:00-05:00

Soapbox is a weekly series delivering a curated set of lectures, talks and symposia concerning contemporary themes but explored through the archives of lectures past and present. With the plethora of lectures, talks, symposia and panels occurring world wide on a daily basis, how can we begin to keep up and if not, find them once they are gone? Soapbox looks to assemble a selection of recent, archived and outlier lectures surrounding a given theme. Soapbox looks to curate this never-ending library of ideas into an engaging and diverse list of thoughts and provocations. Soapbox is just that, a collection aimed at discovering the occasional needle in a haystack.