{"id":295656,"date":"2025-11-20T15:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295656\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T15:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:01:07","slug":"canadian-architects-explore-what-ai-means-for-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295656\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian architects explore what AI means for creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Symplasma within Canaletto\u2019s Santa Maria della Salute and the Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice. Henriquez Partners Architects used AI to create this image. Across the country, more architecture firms are experimenting with how the technology can be integrated within their work.Bartosz Palus & Henriquez Partners Architects<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is beginning to redraw the blueprints of architecture. From design studios to university labs, Canadian architects are experimenting with the technology \u2013 transforming the idea of creativity within the profession.<\/p>\n

For Vancouver architect Gregory Henriquez, this feels both thrilling and unpredictable. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a wild horse right now,\u201d he says. \u201cIt requires rigour and experimentation.\u201d <\/p>\n

His firm, Henriquez Partners Architects, recently used AI to create images for its Venice Biennale entry \u2013 a tower inspired by sea sponges, set against dreamlike Renaissance landscapes by Canaletto. \u201cIt\u2019s in its genesis, but it\u2019s fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense of both excitement and uncertainty runs through Canada\u2019s architecture community.<\/p>\n

At McGill University\u2019s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, associate professor Theodora Vardouli reminds her students that AI isn\u2019t as new as it seems. <\/p>\n

\u201cAI is just a brand for many kinds of computational techniques,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd those have been percolating since the 1960s in architecture.\u201d <\/p>\n

Across Canada, that long evolution is colliding with a sudden flood of accessible tools and the results look very different from firm to firm.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Core Architects Inc. \u2013 known for projects ranging from One Bloor West, soon to be the city\u2019s tallest condominium, to office and recreation spaces \u2013 is all in on AI.<\/p>\n

Partner Brian Laye says the firm has spent two years exploring AI\u2019s potential. One director devotes part of each week to AI research, while the building-information modelling specialist develops custom tools to automate repetitive work.<\/p>\n

The firm relies heavily on Midjourney, a text-to-image generator that turns written prompts into visuals. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really good way to get inspired,\u201d Mr. Laye says. \u201cIt\u2019s like any firm looking for images in books or magazines.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI is also used to generate still images and fly-through videos of proposed buildings, bringing blueprints to life long before construction. For Core, it\u2019s a tool for speed and inspiration \u2013 not a replacement for creativity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur office has made a deliberate move to do this,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd our BIM (Building Information Modelling) specialist is creating custom tools \u2013 anything that can relieve the manual efforts on repetitive tasks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diamond Schmitt, another major Toronto firm, takes a more cautious approach.<\/p>\n

While AI helps visualize early design ideas, public tools such as Midjourney are banned, says principal Victor Lima. Instead, the 350-person firm uses proprietary in-house software to ensure data privacy and quality control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s saving us quite a bit of time and effort,\u201d Mr. Lima says. <\/p>\n

Architecture schools are adapting, too.<\/p>\n

At the University of Toronto\u2019s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, professor Vivian Lee is studying AI\u2019s impact on curriculum. She has students evaluate dozens of tools and map which stage of design they serve best \u2013 from early concept generation to project management.<\/p>\n

Visualization remains the simplest and most effective entry point. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something AI does fairly well,\u201d Ms. Lee says. <\/p>\n

Using AI to generate a raft of early design possibilities is something she finds is useful for students because they can devote their time to assessing what\u2019s good and bad about quickly generated concepts rather than agonizing and getting defensive about something they spent days painfully drafting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s helping them. It\u2019s a faster way to announce what they\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she also sees limits because architectural design is much more complex than just generating models.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe teach students how to evaluate and prioritize, how to couple two competing goals into one.\u201d That\u2019s not something any AI tool can do at this point.<\/p>\n

Mr. Laye echoes that sentiment. \u201cArchitecture is one of the oldest professions. No inventions have replaced the need for critical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and others recognize AI\u2019s pitfalls \u2013 bias, distortion and overreliance. <\/p>\n

Back in Montreal, Prof. Vardouli describes a student project that exposed AI\u2019s biases. Student Suehayla Eljaji created avatars of herself in different outfits and asked AI to place them in \u201cappropriate\u201d apartments and cities. The results revealed assumptions baked into the algorithms: the avatar in scruffy sweats ended up in a dim Detroit flat, while the avatar in a floral skirt was cast as a \u201ccreative\u201d in a bright Boston loft.<\/p>\n

Mr. Laye has also observed that AI can understand basic instructions but not what\u2019s feasible in the real world. Asked to design a bedroom that is 100 square feet, it could generate a room that is two feet by 50 feet \u2013 \u201ctechnically correct but functionally useless.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s what everyone in all fields of AI is worried about \u2013 people losing their skills as they rely on a computer to do cognitive work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is danger of disabling a generation of human beings,\u201d Mr. Henriquez says. But, he recognizes it\u2019s more than a tool \u2013 it\u2019s a new art form, the way photography and film once were. \u201cThis is a new medium. Not only is it a tool for synthesizing information but we can create something totally new.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Symplasma within Canaletto\u2019s Santa Maria della Salute and the Riva degli Schiavoni in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1401,76,354,355,49,48,356,75,2922,127839],"class_list":{"0":"post-295656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-adveditorial","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-noastack","17":"tag-ordid3871303198"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}