Interesting post on (the very likely) trajectory for the future of polished visuals to win your next free pitch, as AL steps into the world of interiors - and exteriors - of architectural design (well, not ‘design’ per se, but making pictures) sparked this little rage. 

I got all hot under the collar about it, as the post was positing a view that the new faculty was resulting in something we’ve never seen before - which, yes, is true, insofar as this rendering engine with a chip-shaped brain’s output is news.

But the proposition simply doesn’t stack up. Take a tour of an actual Faculty of Architecture at kicking out (sorry, graduation) time and trust me, you’ll experience such an amazing repertoire of design and visualisation it makes you blink when you step outside of the show, look around, and wonder why the built environment looks, well, so shit. 

And there’s the nub. It’s not for want of talent or our ability to see how the world could look - and outsourcing it to machines isn’t going to fix that - it’s our want for it. The ‘our’ here being us - as ‘customers’ or users of buildings - you the clients - the commissioners - and all the vested interest groups from local communities and collectives, authorities, project managers, construction co’s and the whole game of people needed to make things actually better. Better made, more responsively built, more upliftingly designed, safer, nicer, yes, cooler. 

Anyone currently considering signing up for seven years of eye-bleedingly hard work and massive debt to want to become someone qualified to do the job - of the future architects of the built environment - will likely be thinking ‘why bother?’ If all you end up being is the person loading hints into programme. 

Which is a tragedy on so many levels, not the least of which is once the machine-leading has mined the last few decades of what’s cool at the Degree Show, all we might end top with is an even more depressing picture of what we might have won. But simply haven’t the skills or energy to deliver. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but bricks and mortar it ain’t. 

But never mind, eh, the 3d-concrete-printing machines will be along soon, and that’ll take care of that.