Generative design tools

[Christiaan]

If Vectorworks is "built with designers in mind" then it's going to need to dip its toes into generative design tools like this, that use artificial intelligence to reduce calculation legwork and free up architects to spend more time on creative tasks.

 

[E|FA]

I'd rather have a usable ______ tool first.

 

See https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/49017-my-wish-vw2021-to-have-no-new-features-please/

 

 

[Christiaan]

Here's another one, but using natural language processing like ChatGPT. Free to sign up and try:

https://hypar.io/

 

Video here of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnK8l5UnbsM

 

And article here in AEC mag:

https://aecmag.com/ai/hypar-text-to-bim-and-beyond/

 

Interesting comment from that article:

Quote

But with increased detail comes performance issues — so how does Hypar cope with large amounts of data? He responds that the size and complexity of workflows that customers are trusting to Hypar are beginning to test the system. “This is a natural progression, when you build any kind of software,” he says. “When Anthony was building Revit, back in the day, and when I was building Dynamo, there’s always a point at which your customers start using this thing you created for larger and larger and larger models.”

 

And:

 

Quote

Our conversation then moves on to the future of building — and how buildings are becoming products. As Keough sees it, a building is comprised of materials and components from a bunch of different manufacturers, just like a laptop. All of these systems must fit tightly and snugly into a clearly defined chassis. From fans to motherboards, the interfaces between them are agreed upon and codified, in order to allow that to happen.

 

“That’s how buildings are going to start being delivered — and there is not a software out there on the market right now that thinks of buildings in that way,” says Keough. “We all still think of buildings as a big muddy hole in the ground that we fill with sticks and bricks. It’s going to be software like Hypar and others out there which are starting to evolve to think of buildings systemically, getting the system logic and interfaces with other systems in the code. There is a future in which clash coordination is not the way that we coordinate any longer, because it’s not required, because all the systems in a building understand where each other are and really understand how to adapt around each other.”

 

[Jeff Prince]

On 9/30/2022 at 10:42 AM, Christiaan said:

use artificial intelligence to reduce calculation legwork and free up architects to spend more time on creative tasks.

These tools will evolve and reduce the time required to deliver a project.

Architects will not have more time to design though, they will have to take on more projects and have fewer people around to help them deliver these projects as most firms race to the bottom, having to compete on price.

 

Need evidence?

Look at the transition from manual drafting to CAD.

Think about what has happened to graphic design and print making as an industry.  Most people and industry leverage technology to create economic advantage, not free time to be used for higher level thinking or personal enjoyment (ex: 40+hr work week).

 

It is fascinating to me when people in creative professions strongly advocate for AI tools without realizing it is their job that will be replaced.  I don’t welcome these changes, but I am prepared to take advantage of them and the economic carnage they will likely result in.  Drafters and BIM modelers employed in the western world will be going the way of the dodo by the end of my career, replaced by operators in less expensive economies or AI.  Curiously, those extinct dodos will likely be reincarnated by DNA reconstruction by the time I’m retired too.  Progress?

 

[Christiaan]

You're right. These technological advances have never really given us more leisure time, they've just increased throughput. More leisure time has to be taken through politics.

 

But I do welcome AI, prefabrication and robotic building because the way we do things now is so incredibly inefficient and wasteful. Wasteful of people's personal time and wasteful of planetary resources. Whether we end up in a techno dystopia or a techno paradise with universal basic income is up to us.

 

Technological change has always been a bit of leap into the dark though, and a Faustian bargain at that. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. And the more we advance, the harder it becomes to back out. And difficult to predict. Agricultural was biggest Faustian bargain of them all. The more efficient we become at producing food the more people there are to feed, making it impossible to back out. But then becoming wealthy has turned out to lower the birth rate. So instead of overpopulation we could be looking at the opposite.