ARC3015YF
Fall 2024 Option Studio
Instructor: Humbi Song
Meeting Section: L0102
Tuesdays, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., 2:00-6:00 p.m.

“We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
-John M. Culkin, referring to Marshall McLuhan  

“We are interested in—if not fascinated by—the two-way relationship between humans and technology. Humans create inspiring and empowering technologies but also are influenced, augmented, manipulated, and even imprisoned by technology, depending on the situation and the interpreter.”
-Pertti Hurme, Jukka Jouhki, in “We Shape Our Tools, and Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us” in Human Technology 13(2). 

This studio explores the possible futures of human-AI collaboration during the process of design. What does it mean to co-design with artificially intelligent systems that have agency of their own? Designer intentions become entangled with machine tendencies and material properties—of what the AI wants to do, what the fabrication tools can do, and what the material tends to do. Understanding that a design process involves a constant feedback loop between 2D drawing and 3D physical making, this studio interrogates how to get AI processes out of the 2D screen and into the 3D physical world—the realm of our bodies, fabrication, and architecture.

We will explore Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) topics in design, especially the developments in Artificial Intelligence, Augmented/Virtual Reality, Physical Computing, and other responsive and interactive technologies. Each step of the evolution of digital design tools (from CAD, Rhino, Grasshopper, etc.) necessitated a critical engagement with the tool to examine the emergent tendencies of each technology. Now, as advancements in AI and robotics reshape design, art, media, fabrication, and society at large, we must address the future of co-design among humans and responsive machines. 

This course also engages with discussions of “more-than-human” or “hybrid intelligent” nature of designing with machines and materials, where human agency is placed relationally to machine agency and material agency. When AI and digital information is taken outside of the computer and into the physical realm through fabrication tools and materials, how might material properties and tolerances interact with the designer and with AI? What questions arise regarding the nature of creative process, authorship, the role of AI, and the role of designers? What are the resulting implications, both positive and negative, for us and our built environments of architecture, landscape, and urban design? 

SCHEDULE:

The structure for the studio is twofold, consisting of a semester-long project where students will design and make a fabrication installation as a way to prototype a workflow of co-design and co-fabrication with generative AI,  which they will concurrently analyze as a case study throughout the process. There are 5 modules, which will progress in the order of: 

1. Analysis (Intro): Introduction to AI, XR, and interactive technologies in Design 
2. Additive: Additive Fabrication 
3. Subtractive: Subtractive Fabrication 
4. Assembly: Assembly of the additive and subtractive pieces 
5. Analysis (Conclusion): Analysis of the project and human-machine collaborative workflow as a case study

At Module 5, a final report presentation will ask students to take a stance about the course’s research questions, informed by their hands-on experience throughout projects 1 through 4 from designing, fabricating, and presenting to others. Workshops will introduce students to generative AI tools of text-to-text, text-to-2D image, 2D-to-2D, text-to-3D mesh, and text-to-video, as well as collaborative AR/VR drawing tools for gestural drawing. We will develop a working document of “Ethical Guidelines for Designers using AI” drawing from our case studies. Course instruction will be supplemented by guest lecturers from 1) law, 2) AI research, 3) materials research, 4) architectural practice, and 5) fabrication practices to provide a variety of expert perspectives from industry and adjacent disciplines.  

At the end of the semester, there will be an exhibit of the physically fabricated works, and this course places a high value on craft and meticulous attention to detail in its finished work. Throughout the semester, there will be a continuous balance between the digital and analog aspects of the creative process, and an ongoing investigation into the nature of creativity.