Speed versus attitude

Discussion with the audience

The students structured their contribution as a conversation with the guests and the audience. Their questions connected the speed of image generation with authorship, design quality and the architect’s responsibility. The discussion of adopting AI suggestions asked how outside influences can be identified and how designers can account for their own contribution. Responses noted that precedents and education shape design even without AI, while the difficulty of tracing the origins of generated suggestions poses a particular challenge.

The question Do you think that a good design takes time? shifted attention from rapid results to questioning and discarding proposals. The conversation distinguished the speed of a tool from the time required for perception and reasoned decisions. An audience contribution also stressed that defining the brief and explaining a design concept to the client remain the architect’s responsibility.

The students then asked: Do you still start with a pen, or do you actually start with the computer? Responses brought in the site, the openness of a sketch and the individual client’s understanding. The comparison of drawings and visualisations preserved a tension: images can help people imagine a project, yet they can also suggest a degree of resolution that the design has not reached. The discussion therefore centred on choosing a means of representation for a reason.

Selected questions and responses from the student contribution “Speed versus attitude” at 13:20. Quotations translated from German.