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Winners announced for Archinect's Generative Futures: AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:01:00-04:00

Archinect is pleased to reveal the winners of the Generative Futures: AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge!

The competition invited participants to develop creative and original submissions, welcoming various storytelling formats and genres, such as allegories, love stories, horror stories, diary entries, or data-driven predictions. Participants were encouraged to use AI tools to assist in generating submissions. Entries were judged based on creativity and originality (50%) and impact and relevance (50%).

After careful deliberation, the competition jury selected a Top Prize winner and four honorable mentions from each category: The AI-infused city; The AI-infused architecture studio; The AI-infused construction site; and the Open Category: entrants may define their own theme as it relates to AI and architecture

Explore the winning entries and honorable mentions below:

TOP PRIZE WINNER: Open Category

Maurice's Last Shift by Tim Papienski

Image generated using Dall-e. Courtesy of...

'Maurice's Last Shift,' Top Prize winner in Archinect's Generative Futures: An AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:00:00-04:00

Maurice's Last Shift by Tim Papienski

Just after dawn, as light rain pattered down on the tarps of the construction site, Maurice stepped gently, trying not to land in the mud. As he passed through the guarded entrance, the banner above proudly proclaimed “847 days without a workplace accident.” Mounted on a pole below, was the ever-present red Stop Work button.

Maurice was a Sensor Jockey. Led a crew of them, in fact. He was retiring after 40 years, and today was his last shift. Maurice has spent his entire working life on jobsites such as this—big, sprawling constructions. He knew everything a person could know.

The jobsite was a repurpose of an abandoned office complex, a mix of apartments, businesses and “Temps.” Maurice headed to the end of the site, the final section block of Temps being printed. The great gantry had been rolled into place, the concrete extruder paused dramatically, like a monk about to illuminate the edges of a medieval bible.

Nobody really knew what wa...

'The Last Flesh and Blood Architect,' Honorable Mention in Archinect's Generative Futures: An AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:00:00-04:00

The Last Flesh and Blood Architect by Juan Manuel Prieto

Human-designed and built architecture was dying out. Hans knew this well, for he had followed it all his days, and he clung to it with a love greater than his need. Many times, he had been urged to give up his old-fashioned ways and join the new order of things, where all was done by the cunning devices of the Machine-mind. But he would shake his head and answer that he was content with his own work, and that he could do better than any machine. But this was only half the truth, for he also felt such pride and joy in his work that nothing else could give him. And he feared the day when it would be no more, when the last of his kind would be swept away by the tide of progress.

After months of idleness and nearing the brink of bankruptcy, fortune finally smiled upon Hans. He encountered a group of visionary investors who shared his passion for human touch, for that spark of life in their creations. They presented him with an opp...

'Ignorance to navigate the maelstrom,' Honorable Mention in Archinect's Generative Futures: An AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:00:00-04:00

Ignorance to navigate the maelstrom by Mel Lewis

The Earth is a theme park, fully subdued to oblige us… and well our literate animal friends.

Its visual primal beauty, reconstructed from the archeological suggestions of three hundred million years ago, fed into the computer to generate a painted “wilderness” landscape. A museum in total where each printed vegetation is accompanied by a label indicating its year, description, cost, and source. Each biological object is carefully monitored; each dynamic flow of water analyzed; each crop plucked at its opportune moment.

Buildings are now part of a rendered surroundings, where architecture and biology are so intertwined that they can be viewed as a single unified field of experience. Everything is nodes in a network to receive and deliver information, a central nervous system for the planet - wrestling the rhythms of nature.

“Organic interdependence means that disruption of any part of the organism can prove fatal to the whole,” remar...

'Blueprints of Belonging: Architecture in the Age of AI,' Honorable Mention in Archinect's Generative Futures: An AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:00:00-04:00

Blueprints of Belonging: Architecture in the Age of AI by Kyle Branchesi

Welcome to the journey of Maria, a young architect, and her AI muse, Calida. Together, they navigate the complex urban landscape of Los Angeles, grappling with a mission far beyond merely building structures. Their quest is to reweave the vibrant cultural tapestry of the city, strained and frayed by relentless forces of gentrification and global homogenization. This is a story about the future of architecture, where AI doesn't replace human creativity but collaborates with it, embracing the community's voice and preserving its rich cultural heritage. This narrative presents a utopian vision of AI as an enabler, an ally, and a force that transforms the architectural profession into a champion of diversity. Explore how the alliance between human sensitivity and AI efficiency can reshape our cities, fostering a built environment that reflects and respects its inhabitants.

Open Air Dialogue: As the sun dips below t...

'Dystopian Dreams and Gigabyte Gleams,' Honorable Mention in Archinect's Generative Futures: An AI + Architecture Storytelling Challenge

2023-07-11T12:00:00-04:00

Dystopian Dreams and Gigabyte Gleams by Mason Miles

Forming a representation of a nature-infused city of the future, hybridizing optimism and entropy, the project lends a satirical outlook on the AI city. The images are each accompanied by a correlating haiku, prodding at what the future may hold while providing space for the viewers' imagination to run free.