Abstract
The paper addresses emerging and potential changes to the core expertise and structural frameworks of architectural practice in an era of human-machine collaboration and transdisciplinary design, utilizing history and theory to situate the current condition of the profession and its socio-technical infrastructure. The role and relationships defining the architect within society are dissected in light of practical uses of artificial intelligence, highlighting the rapidly evolving ways in which our relationships with site, construction, collaborators, and even the fundamental DNA of the building as an artifact are shifting in the transition from digitization to digitalization. Activities surrounding data collection, classification, process generation and layering are addressed as emergent and fundamental acts of 21st century design.
Keywords
Practice, Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, Data, Transdisciplinary Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2628
Citation
Christoforetti, E.B., and Witt, A. (2026) Data and the Changing Landscape of Architectural Intelligence, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2628
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Data and the Changing Landscape of Architectural Intelligence
The paper addresses emerging and potential changes to the core expertise and structural frameworks of architectural practice in an era of human-machine collaboration and transdisciplinary design, utilizing history and theory to situate the current condition of the profession and its socio-technical infrastructure. The role and relationships defining the architect within society are dissected in light of practical uses of artificial intelligence, highlighting the rapidly evolving ways in which our relationships with site, construction, collaborators, and even the fundamental DNA of the building as an artifact are shifting in the transition from digitization to digitalization. Activities surrounding data collection, classification, process generation and layering are addressed as emergent and fundamental acts of 21st century design.