Rendering Conceptual Design Ideas with Artificial Intelligence

This paper documents a data-driven approach to a conceptual rendering workflow with Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. This work originates from the workshop ‘Intro to AI for Architectural Design Explorations’ lectured by the authors Mayur Mistry and Daniel Escobar, during the event ‘Inclusive FUTURES 2021’ at the Digital Futures platform. The observations reflect about the applicability of machine-augmented conceptual design. As a common practice in the fi eld, architects start designing their buildings by sketching their ideas, this is a process that attempts to translate a concept into a spatial and aesthetic solution. Nevertheless, the design process is an iterative and time-consuming task. For this reason, we must experiment new methods that can potentially enhance architectural practice.