Archinect - Features

Narrative, Media, and AI in Architectural Academia; A Conversation with Natasha Sandmeier

2023-11-06T13:00:00-05:00

Archinect last spoke with Natasha Sandmeier on the themes of visual media and narrative storytelling in 2019. Back then, few could have imagined the seismic impact that generative AI would have on such fields. In her leading role at UCLA AUD's Entertainment Studio, Sandmeier sits at the forefront of an architectural academic landscape, already asking what the recent popularized adoption of AI in design and world-building means for authorship, ethics, representation, learning criteria, and the role of the architect.

The intervening four years since 2019 have also seen a shift in Sandmeier's own responsibilities. Beyond her position as an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA, Sandmeier is now the Executive Director of Los Angeles' A+D Museum, offering yet another outlet to explore the question of how technology is changing the face of architecture and media. The latest appointment adds to Sandmeier's long list of prior positions in the worlds of architectural academia, practice, and cu...

Architectural Memory and Film with UCLA's Alekya Malladi, Gesthimani Roumpani, and Yanrong Yang

2020-07-29T13:11:00-04:00

Architecture and it's ability to frame visual narratives has impacted film and entertainment for decades. With the evolution of design techniques and software, a new form of digital storytelling can aide how architecture is used to test design process and pedagogy. University of California Los Angeles Architecture and Urban Design M.Arch students Alekya Malladi, Gesthimani Roumpani, Yanrong Yang use film to dissect architecture and AI in their project, Incognito.

Advised by UCLA's IDEAS Entertainment Studio advisors Natasha Sandmeier and Nathan Su, the group explains how their film "serves as an exposé on memory, spatial reconstruction, and the role of contemporary media in delivering fact and fiction." Archinect connected with the trio as they share their perspectives on working through the pandemic and what their future holds as they enter professional practice. "Our interactions with professionals in the architecture industry have shown us that establishing a clear identity and i...

Exploring the Future of Narrative in Architecture with Natasha Sandmeier and Nathan Su of UCLA's IDEAS Entertainment Studio

2019-11-14T20:30:00-05:00

Narrative, drama, and fiction have always played a key role in the production of architecture.

During the 19th Century, for example, architects like Louis Sullivan and McKim Mead & White mixed organic and formal languages to tell stories about the activities that took place within the buildings they designed, while Modernist architect Le Corbusier often worked through episodic vignettes while designing buildings and urban plans alike. In the 1980s, Jon Jerde mixed these approaches to create his trademark "experience architectures," precedents that architects like Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid melded with an urban focus to create buildings that extend the street indoors and create seamless collections of spaces that blur the distinction between inside and outside.

In recent years, architecture's narrative turn has largely focused on a variety of digital fronts, where virtual and augmented reality experiments, filmic approaches, and sophisticated visualizations are creating yet another ...