Tom Slater: Hi everyone, my name is Tom Slater, Director at T2S Architecture Limited and your host for the Design an AI podcast. Design an AI looks to explore how artificial intelligence is impacting the world of architecture, design and the creative industries through candid conversations with leaders building the future. AI is powerful, but how can human endeavor, innovation and creativity evolve alongside it? Today we're joined by Amelia Hunter, co-founder and director of SpaceA, founder of AI Sure-Intel Forum and Jagged Architecture Frontier. Amelia, delighted to have you on the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. made if I did that in one go? Yeah, can just do J-A-F if you want. Let's take us from the start then, I mean we say architecture but actually you've dabbled in, not necessarily dabbled but into your graphic design and everything else, so take us through the sort of the start of your creative journey if you will, where did that come from? So I guess I was drawn to study architecture because I guess a lot of people are the same in that it's a creative discipline but it feels a little bit more acceptable to mom and dad and that it's a professional route. So I started at the Bartlett, I did my undergrad at the Bartlett and then I went to go work at Foster's after so a very sort of conventional route into I guess commercial architecture career path. Foster's was incredible, I learned so much there. projects they're doing. It was amazing for a young architect. And then after doing that I suddenly got a bit interested in a completely opposite end of the spectrum so I went to go work for a product designer in high-end chandeliers and sculptures called Avermense Design. Incredible. wonderfully talented lady who basically designs these sculptures for typically residential and commercial settings out of a myriad of materials from Mongolian horsehair to Swarovski crystals of all shapes and sizes and colours to things like Hyde Park leaves that are... placed in an acid tank and covered in gold and a hound. Was it almost art? Yeah, it was and we'd be up there with white gloves, arms for hours, suspending these crystal lined leaves and that was incredible. We had the studio with all our materials in rainbow order and there was just something so fantastical and magic about the work. that we did there. But also I really loved the business side of it. I was like, I should probably carry on being an architect. It just gives me all options. ended up working for the International Federation of Housing and Planning, which was slightly accidental, but that was fascinating, almost completely opposite end of the spectrum in terms of their... at NGO, founded in the UK actually, off the back of the Ebonies or Howard Garden city movement. they're an NGO promoting healthy cities. networks, connectivity between disciplines all over the world from planners to architects to engineers and everyone in between a year, sorry. pattern. incredible too. it was a very personal project and I think myself and Anna, who are always very close, we worked at RCA together do. You you're literally talking about someone about their daily routine, how they work through the space that's really safe. Sometimes they want to place the table that their mother designed and made front and centre in their living room. and that's much more important than some grand architectural notion, or they might want that too. what makes them feel the best version of themselves at home. And Mary's project really crystallised this philosophy because working with her was incredibly rewarding. but she was very articulate in how she wanted to live. So we sort of, through that, we developed this philosophy of working collaboratively with our clients. And we see our projects as being a bit of a journey. So a brief is constantly evolving. We might start off with a trajectory, and then we constantly look at it and change it in terms of how someone's responding. So we'll do visuals for everyone's spaces. We'll start to think about materials that might fit into that or not. And therefore the journey becomes actually like a sort form of people kind of come out of it understanding a bit more of a sense of self after that. I'm just going to say as you say it's a very personal experience isn't it? And you end up asking what I imagine are not intimate questions but things like do you like the sunlight in your bedroom in the morning? And think just little things like that right? And all of a sudden you get a little view point into them waking up in the morning and then do their own little routine. So it's quite a sort of intimate process and it sounds to me as if... you went to Foster's, okay, this is fine, but then immediately you do the sort of the very artistic design which has a formal, personal... sort of sense to it that architecture through the fosters, it's not impersonal, that would be harsh, but these massive buildings, right, it's a very sort of corporate world. It sounds to me as if that wasn't really the avenue that you wanted to pursue at all. So it's interesting when we start talking about AI and like cross referencing back to that, because I think it's something that all of us as humans want to feel the kind of proper conversation that someone's actually listening to you, know, what they're doing now. Of course. It's interesting just hearing you talk about that. you want to connect with the person that's the end user so to speak, whether that's a piece of art or whether that's the actual building itself, you obviously want that connection which is what you've discovered over time which is amazing. Yeah I think the trust is the most important thing and I think I'm a bit old school with my approach to being an architect, I can really take seriously the... traditional value of the heightened level of professional responsibility in that we are there to provide an objective, a service that's, you know, we're very discreet with our clients, we listen to them, we are part of their family, they should feel like they can talk to us about anything. And I think as architects that's quite an old school values, but I think in this fast world where everything's shared on social media and everything. a bit like fast and know sexy and kind of like exciting actually just having someone sat next to you and chatting about like okay like how do you feel best self in your bathroom in the morning and in that way we're more like spatial therapists actually like how you want to flush your toilet is you do you pull a chain do you flush a handle do you press a button just how do you touch a building is a very very big deep subject and you really really to The tactile aspect of the building even if it's, you know, if we're doing sort of apartment schemes, what I'll always try and do is look at how does the door handle feel? How did the taps feel in the bathroom, in the kitchen? That's what people, that is what people touch. not really that bothered about that window detail that you spend hours detailing other than maybe how does it open? But interesting just without jumping too close into the AI stuff, what you mentioned there about like all architectural therapists just raised something in my mind that there was an article recently in Times by basically a dad and the whole purpose of the article was I want to advise my children in an AI world what you know which guide them in a way that says okay this is a really interesting career path and he analyzed the areas that he thought that AI wouldn't be able to target and one was emotional intelligence which is exactly what you just talked about and obviously on this podcast is we're trying to discover where architecture or design and being human sits within this world where this incredible technology is developing in parallel to us. Actually, that's another aspect that designers can call upon, it? We are, a sense, creating something in person for human beings. And you have to have that empathy. Because if you don't, then people just won't want to connect with you. And as designers, if you can draw upon the empathy, if you can draw upon that human nature of design and creating a thing or whatever that thing might be, that is another little avenue that something that we can cherish and develop. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Because I guess the difference between an artist and a designer, I talk about this because artists in theory have no parameters as much as designers in that they're able to express themselves and their views of the world and put that into the world in whatever medium they see fit whereas the designers were working with more parameters. and clients and their viewpoints and their take on the world is one of those parameters. you know often clients come to designers because they like the designers perspective on the world but there's always a meeting point right there's always a meeting point as to what that perspective means how it translates and I think you know we want to be flexible but sometimes clients just want to be told and we'll always say that we'll be like well if it was me I'd do this because of xyz and things. and it's whatever that is as much as it might not be it's you're not the person that's going to use the house but there's still a logical and a rationale that they have to draw upon Did you feel that it just wasn't enough that I could actually do all these other things and that was just as satisfying as architecture? I'm quite interested by No, I don't think so. I actually think it's the opposite. Because I don't have that all, you see. study architecture, and this is a whole conversation as to what's on the curriculum and how it's done, there's very much a big encouragement to really explore the edges and the macro and the micro and the mediums and the debates and the politics that all surround around architecture. So I think I was naturally, through going to the Bartlett, the projects we did, I was naturally fascinated in just the creative industry. I'd never said I necessarily wanted to be an architect with a capital A. I think architecture career path gives you so many opportunities and so many transferable skills to go off and do anything you want. And I think of all my friends and so many people have gone off and lived really fascinating careers in set design, film. construction related paths to name but a few but I think so I don't think it is restrictive for me I just these opportunities came up and I just love an adventure and I'm just too curious I'm just like sure let's do it that's my philosophy of life I guess is always and that's why love running business because I'm like always up for any new adventure that might pop up But for me, think the way the reason I came back and I did my part three in the end was I just inherently believe that architecture is an art that you can't not see in that Architectures around us all the time and it's so important. It founds place it founds a sense of hope it sounds everything that's good about our country is usually founded through an architecture like through Through the places we walk through and that encompasses a philosophy of life which I really believe in and believe that architecture can nurture that. So that's why I came back myself to architecture So that's why I came back to it but I didn't think architecture was restricted at all. I totally agree with you. And it explores all these different creative industries. And so for example the guy who designed the I think half of Floyd were architects. I think I'm right in saying that Kanye West was studying architecture. So you do hear these stories and it's totally right that if you're a creatively minded person and you're thinking about to study in university, architecture is the best place for it because if you were to study product design or creative design you are immediately probably limiting yourself to those things whereas if you studied architecture you studied architecture you could still go into creative design as you are for example. You can step down from architecture but I don't think you can step up. Yeah that was always my philosophy 100%. I think like it's As a student you do have to push the edges though if you want to transfer you have to be curious you have to be always listening out what's happening go along use your analytical thought to think about how those skills could translate to a new industry I'm always interested to speak with people that have that sort of the path through our architecture, always do. I just wanted to be an architect, maybe it was the super. I think we talked about this beforehand, the sort of the moment that thing, it was accepted, thought Tom wants to be an architect, great, and I thought okay. I just kind of like the, I'm on a process here and I'm going to stick to the process. It sounds a little bit different which is Well it's interesting you say that actually because my dad was in more like commercial property development and he was always like like I always sit next to an architect at networking events and he was like they're so arrogant as to what they want design wise live. I think there's such an interesting public perception of what architects are like and I always think of a homeowner's alliance have got a page on why should I work with an architect and one of the cons is sometimes architects tell you what you should do and actively press you. to do it even if you don't want to do it. There's this perception that architects will come along and tell you do this, do that and you sort of pay attention. I'd quite like to talk about this actually because I think it's a really interesting point. There's a debate going on isn't it? think they're trying to change the architectural process and there's a lot of how do you protect architecture. And do we do enough to sell ourselves is what we do. Because it feels like we as a profession just kind of sitting in a corner and just doing our own thing. And other professions are a lot more outspoken and connected with politics and everything else, but we're just kind of stuck in a box. And do we put ourselves in the box? But I've had a few LinkedIn sort of conversations slash shouting masters with these guys that they're technicians and they seem to be wanting to really grind their acts about architects and sell us in a particular way as gatekeepers to technology you know and we're something is what some of the criticism is about well I need an architect I've got to get an architect I need some drawings well you don't but I think we've we need to start selling what we do a little bit better also interested on because you talked about Copenhagen. How long were you studying in Copenhagen? Well I didn't study so I worked there for a year. I imagine, perhaps jumping to a conclusion, Copenhagen standard European city with beautiful architecture everywhere even was did you notice a slightly different attitude to architecture within sort of public consciousness. My feeling in this country is engineering based than architects. Architects are the guys that want to make it really expensive and do fun things and we want to be a bit more engineered like in this country. it doesn't really feel that that's moving into Europe. Yeah I'd say that in the UK, well I'd say in Denmark there's more of a monocultured approach to design and aesthetics I'd say. Like if you cycle through Denmark at night see into some apartments you'll see like it's interior sort of copied you know the Ikea-esque with a just contemporary modernist nod of the Scandi style tends to be replicated have a bit more of an appreciation of that type of design aesthetic and it's a little bit more. Whereas in the UK, think there's a much bigger variety of opinion as to what good aesthetics is, as inverted commas, like what is a beautiful building. I think there's a lot more variety of opinions. think it's Who should be able to say that? That would be like someone saying we should all listen to Pink Floyd. forever can't listen to Kanye West for example right? You can't tell people what they can and can't like. I do think there's a little bit of debate going on in this country with modernist and classical and the amount of times I see on my social media feeds some person that's not an architect going why don't we design buildings that look like this anymore and invariably it's a classically styled building and so I feel that debate is something uniquely British but I might be wrong. Yeah, I guess it plays out in different ways around the world. think Britain was so tied to quite a strong cultural aesthetic that's potentially in the past that comes with other implications, I guess, that it can become quite a tricky subject to be dwelling on in terms of what's the right design aesthetic for the country. I think I'm fascinated in vernacular in that way because I think different vernaculars are now living in Wales vernaculars obviously come from the climate, come from the landscape and there's I guess in finding vernacular there's a little bit of a way out of this debate and it becomes like less divisive in terms of your tradition or even to contemporary design. So I think that's interesting and probably for another day to discuss. But yeah, I think that in Denmark, guess they're a smaller country, there's a bit more of monoculture. So I think potentially this design conversation flows a bit more smoothly because I think the direction is already going a little bit more one way in that. sense. That's my observation. In terms of the industry I think I'm less able to comment on that but I do know that in Germany and I think to a degree in Denmark I might be wrong that there's more of sort of conceptual architects and technical architects so it's sort of defined a little bit more like that. That's what I was told in university that post part two in Germany you can become either sort of project manager or architect or creative architect. split off it's almost like an 11 plus style educational split which I don't because I wouldn't like to be boxed in. I would almost like to sort of have the skill set that would allow me to explore different avenues as much as I am an architect but that's about as constrained as I would like to be. I'd still like to be able to sort of express myself or do different parts of that profession in different ways and I didn't really like that attitude personally. Yeah that's interesting. think yeah I think you're right and I think having more ability to go between technical and conceptual leads to interesting design. But I do think there needs to be more of an articulation in terms of when you study, where you're going to end up specializing. think that would help students because I think at the moment as a young student coming out from school, I mean, my husband went to Bath, for example, to study architecture. He had to have maths and physics or certainly sciencey ones. I went to Barlet and I had to art. And my approach to architecture and a BSc, was very artistic, was very encouraged to be quite creative in the approach to design, whereas his degree, was in theory the same BSc, was very much manifest and drawable. of looking at the technicalities of it more. I mean we did do a little bit Barlow but not so much. So I think that is interesting, maybe quite confusing. I'm actually working with architectural technician in North Wales at the moment and it has made me think a lot about what the role of the different titles are and I definitely think there needs to be more of an articulation or a sort of appreciation of what the value is for each professional title but again this might be for another day. I think that what's so incredible about learning. look at the technical side is that a whole bunch of other parameters come up that really strengthen the creative approach to design as well. So, and I just think they need to be more breaking down silos of different people in the industry. think any time when networks can encourage cross-disciplinary chat, think as soon as people become stuck in their roots and their lanes, it's never great. yeah. I think the other downside to the way the architecture courses in this country as well is we're all trying to aspire to be as our horror did and actually the reality is 99.9 of us just aren't that talented. no, I didn't include it that way. Sure, but I think if you ever go back to my old university or any sort of, I see there's a lot of the CVs that come through, there is a very strong... There's a template for a style of architecture that the universities seem to like and is that sort of, whether it's Daniel Leaviskin or Zahra did this very sort of artistic, sort of globular architectural style. I also just wonder whether we produce a lot of architects in this country and when the debate is about the value of architects and as the profession, is the problem supply and demand and we create too many? don't have the facts to answer that, but all I know is that we need the skill of architects in merging creative and pragmatic aspects and creating the best outcome. But I think we need even more than that. We need... an ability for us all to communicate together because I think I always think that my job is basically a big Chinese whispers right like and if I ran an architecture unit I would the first thing I'd do with my students would be like create this grand Chinese whispers s game like get people from one side of London to the other maybe with different messages because I think how you communicate and how you translate a positive vibe and getting so important and I think that is the foundation, like the energy which a group of humans put into a problem which is obviously creating building. It matters, like it lasts in the bricks, you can feel it, you can sense it when there's been like a really positive vibe and I feel like in any project I'm in do my best, it's always sometimes quite difficult to just try and see the best in anyone, see where people are coming from, both clients and any consultants working in it. And ultimately you've got to get over a hell of a lot of hurdles together, right? No one knows what's gonna takes drive. It takes drive, it takes trust. There's a lot of people during that whole process that gonna say, Tommy can't do this, you can't do that. And so, yeah, the positivity is very important. And I think if we're in a position that you can design something that people are really inspired by, and that makes the whole process a little bit easier because people want to get behind it. If the clients will like it and all your consultants will go, well... because it looks great. Yeah, maintain that whilst it's being value engineered. Yeah, one lesson, one of main lessons I was taught in my old practice by the sort of design director was the way you judge, and this is the case with any creative endeavour, but within an architectural sort of framework was you judge the person what initial idea was against what they delivered. And if what they delivered is a close resemblance of what the intention was, the rest is subjective. they've done their job. to deliver something that is sort of a closer resemblance of what the creator of day was. and that takes grit. think at architecture school it stops at the beautiful visual and that's the bit that's, and you know, if we bring an AI to it, I know you're not ready to yet, but you know, if you think about it, like now it's so easy to get something beautiful, know, snap if you're up five seconds, great, but who cares? If you can't like make it land, if you can't see it be built, you tour a budget to the timeline, you can't inspire people along the way. it matters for nothing and I think that's what architecture students, know, the kind of working in a team, all linking arms metaphorically, or maybe not metaphorically, and you know, going to each site meeting and being like, okay, I know it's raining really hard and I know we've just had XYZ that's gone wrong. ultimately we're building this building that's going to be here for, I don't know, let's hope 500 years. Let's set our highest, let's set our standards. So for me, that's what we do as teams and we're building the future of our civilization. We're building something that hopefully is going to be dug up and don't know if the planet's still here and that's how they used to live, right? Like with all the chicken bones from KFC. But yeah, so for me, that's what we do and we're doing it together. So I think the cross breaking down the boundaries. of the construction industry. that's my hope would be that. Amazing, okay and I think on that note we'll end part one. Thank you very much and then yeah we'll get right into the AI stuff next. Thank you. Hi everyone, this is part two. yeah, I think what I'd quite like to start talking about, Amelia, is the AI forum. Shamanla, just tell us about that. yeah, so guess myself and Sebastian Elliott, who runs MacroMicro Architecture Practice, we were having loads of WhatsApp conversations about AI and architecture and implementing it. of how you do it right, what was working, some cool tools, and then we thought, hang on, let's just open this up to any architect who's running a small business. I mean, it doesn't have to be running a small business, but the small business was more of the lens because I think mainly because when you're running a small business and me having done it for eight years and doing a family at the same time, I feel quite siloed sometimes. think you... saying one of our conversations that you filled out too. So it was just really an open platform, very grassroots, obviously over everyone's Instagram right now it's like sign up for this AI initiation course and 200 quid or whatever. This was just meant to be the opposite of that. We all share... the same discipline, the same problems every day and it's nebulous AI, like what tool do you use? it Claude? Is it Grok? Is it know, chat GPT? So it was just a way for people to be like by the way I did this, it wasn't good or it was good and so we set a format, it was like an hour every lunchtime, three people, ten minutes, comments on each. Just meant to be, you know, share anything, you don't have to be made the next, you know, unicorn company. Just literally, I'm finding this when I play around with specifications or when I play around with the visual. I've done this, what do you think, as a way to share. So that's where it came from. So we're really starting and, you know, building up a WhatsApp group now, we're building up slow, we're just trying to evolve it depending on what people find useful really. And then also having conversations as well data and like contracts and you know what do you do when architects take your early concepts and then use AI to evolve them and then you know don't use you as an architect. All these sticky conversations that really got to come out right and that's through practice and if someone's gonna go through the court of law at some point you know it's just figuring out who that's gonna be and when and how and how does copyright and creative you know all this stuff big stuff. I think that's what you just touched on there. that's going to be a of a game changer and how that plays out. Someone's going to try and sue someone, and how's it going to work? Someone at some point is going to say in court, well, I asked Claude. Or I asked Trachy T. Interesting what you just talked about in terms of the copyright and the architecture stuff is what our colleagues are just doing. part three and there was a lot of AI questions in the coffee and one of them was that your client has, thank you for getting blind, your client has discovered that he could go to a company in China that will do technical drawings through AI, discuss the topic and its ethics. And I mean it's all a bit wooly and it's the part three but it's an interesting... topic about where we're at from an architectural perspective. What's been in the forum, are there any commonalities of what's the uptake from architects as a whole? What are you seeing? I'd say a lot of interest. think some people are, because I'm on a WhatsApp group that's mainly for North London architects and for small business architects, and there's about 300 architects on that. So some people are sort of downright big thumbs down, like, I don't want to hear about this, this is awful, you know, really like AI haters, which I guess is extreme. And then some people are gingerly interested, and I guess there's like keeping up with the Joneses thing, like, my goodness, this is another thing I need to like put on my list to do, am I going to get behind, am I going to see myself being undercut for my P proposals, which is obviously, as a business owner, always on the dot there. And actually as an offset, I've just done a tender, sorry this may or may not be interesting, I've just done a tender for a measured building survey and one of the companies was a third less than the other two, it was crazy. I was like, actually this commercial ability and how AI impacts the ability to... And they were doing the measured survey through AI, how was this? Well, I don't actually know, but my suspicion was it's AI, meaning that there's, I mean basically it's a point cloud scanning tool and I gotten to the ins and outs, but it did just through that example. whether or not they are using AI not. You know, really, like for small business architects or for anyone quoting in terms of like how that's going to lead to fee proposals and you actually winning your work, that is a here and now issue. We're in uncharted waters. So I think a lot of architects are like, we're better listening, for examples like that. The kind of people volunteering to speak though, tend to be people who've already decided to make a tool. So they're already... dived in, making a tool for various X, Y, Z reasons. Either they're doing it on the site, moonlighting, or they've literally quit and want to sort of set something up, software that's super powered by AI. So yeah, actually we need more architects who are just doing their daily architecty jobs and want to be like, yeah, I tried this and that. And I've actually volunteered sometimes and just said, look, I am very much an AI. not an AI expert, I'm just a little bit beyond chatbot. Sometimes I fiddle with agents but really not very advanced at all because I feel like that's what most architects are in, right? It's a hard enough job just delivering the projects you need to and keeping your business going and lights on and stuff to be able to carve out loads and loads of time to be able to fiddle around with it. at the moment there are a of people doing tools who talking on it and then... architects asking questions or know wanting more feedback as to how it could be implemented. Some people have built their own tools for some timekeeping software and have launched them and made them open source on the... That sounds interesting. Yeah and have been like we take this and use it this is how we've done it. So that's quite interesting in that like there's these sort of half-made building blocks that other people can take and make more... And then there's other kind of more software-based systems like A Voice, who are very much an American-based company breaking into UK market now, who sell the specification base. don't know if you've heard of those guys, but yeah, they're those sorts of people as well, talking on, who are very impressive and are actually changing a lot as to what tools architects use in doing their day-to-day job. So yeah, that's what we're seeing and some real kind of... impressive people who are really thought leaders in the role of design and architecture, rural practice, specialising in BIM and MCP connectors and others, people like Luke who are doing the planning tool as well. So yeah, that's my takeaway really. One thing that you touched upon in terms of the courses, mean, literally today I was having a little bit of a laugh with Mariana because there was a course that I looked at Oxford University and it was going into the theoretics of AI and I decided against signing up for it because I thought the theory of AI is not really that useful to me, what I want. is the practical knowledge of AI, which is kind of what the Show and Learn thing is looking at, isn't it? It's not a deep dive into the ethics of it. It's actually just like, is a tool. This could be really useful for you. Here's how you could use it. So it sounds like you're not a great lot of enthusiasm from the architecture world, would that be fair? so. In the world that you're Yeah, we've got close to 100 sign ups now, so people who are interested. I think it just goes on the, I probably should do something about this list. then because there's so much mixed press out there. and a lot of it negative. And I think it's true. You can't dive into this, as you were saying before. You can't just give it your whole computer and hope for the best because this stuff hasn't been figured out properly yet. So I think it is good to stop and learn and watch. And then also make sure that you are... A lot of what's come up through my researching AI is that there's a lot of... processing fatigue that can happen because AI can obviously create such deep documents that can take hours and hours to go through. Sometimes it's just better to have not used it in the first place because the amount of time you're going to take just going through and then checking in and things. So I think people are tinkering, I'd say. Would that be the case with you as well or how much do you use Yeah, probably tinkering. But I am... pretty astounded at how good Chalk GPT is at designing a building. I mean, it is amazing. It is amazing. You just can't deny that. And so I would not put my head in the sand. think that's why myself and Sebastian and now Emma Hugh, who runs a consultancy. She's an architect as well. She's joined us too in running these sessions. I just think the capacity for it to change fundamentally what we do as architects and designers is absolutely massive and as Grayson Perry said the other day his documentary, the toothpaste is out the tube, it's not going back in the tube. Do you know what mean? So it's just, we have to engage with this, we may not like it and I think there's aspects of it that are extremely dangerous and scary but the only... that we're stronger together, it's cheesy, but we are stronger together. That's my philosophy, especially if you're a small business architect and you know you've got so much to do, we've all got kids, we pick them up, I just want to tune into my peers and for us to be like what do you guys think, is this like a copyright breach or know big things like that but also like is it okay if I use AI? to do my visuals for this or is it not? I think it's just something that as a society we've got to team up together to figure it out and we're stronger in our professional group so that was really the philosophy behind the show and learn. see where it comes to you really. think once a month is really not enough because this stuff is still happening every week. But you know I'm doing this myself especially and we're doing it like in our free time you know it's not like a job thing we're literally just doing it out of volunteer time so we'll see you know if it grows arms and legs and how much interest there might be but I think ultimately some big conversations about where the value of the architect is in an AI world that needs to happen very soon because... And we'll talk about that a bit. Where did the interest in AI come from? Is it purely a, wow, this is a really big subject and we need to talk about it or is it something else? So he would always take it and I'd say, well, just stop it. I don't want to hear from you, kind of thing. And then I had the opportunity to go to MIT. So I went to MIT in April. When I'm in Wales, I work in a place called Emsbark, which is this incredible, Wales is first as a science park, and they aim to be carbon neutral. And they're really being funded by the Welsh government and Bangor University, encouraging innovation. The Welsh government has a corporate. liaison relationship with MIT and every four years it's an opportunity for small businesses in Wales to go out to MIT and do a program of events, go to a big conference but also do workshops and one-to-ones for professors out there, have tours around the workshops and see what they're doing. So I went out there in April for a week and it was one of those absolutely incredible life-changing trips in that when you're in MIT and you're the cusp of the next revolution, know, big, big enlightenment revolution, I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say it in that way. So when you walk around MIT at this time that we're in, you can feel it in the air. You can feel the innovation, you can feel the new ideas, you can feel... stuff happening across different disciplines but know nuclear fusion happening for commercial small things you know they're demoing these amazing things and then we're also talking about AI and what that means. for the future of big business, for industry, for the of finance and for architecture I guess. So I had that week and what was so amazing was I was with a small team from Anglesey, they were all speaking Welsh and talking about innovation in the local context and I was with them in Boston USA talking about global next level ideas and that combination of hyper local and hyper global it was incredibly because this team are doing some really cool stuff locally, they're in schools, they're encouraging through internships young people to come into science and tech and start new businesses. was a sort of strip line straight to MIT and I just thought, God, the potential for us to change the world, I mean it's a really cheesy thing, I was just like, whoa, we've got to do something about it. So I just wanted to connect back to my profession and my discipline and speak to people like Emma and Sebastian and be like, come on guys, let's do something about it, let's talk about this, let's see what's gonna happen, let's do some big things, let's change the world, you know, it's really one of those things. So for me, AI and Daniel. who's the head of Claw, it's Daniel, I can't remember his second name, He was like, this is the rainbow. And he said that in an interview with the FT, lunch with the FT, was like, there's no end to the rainbow, I think his quote was. And so in my head I've got rainbows and like diving in rainbows. and for me as a creative I'm just like, woohoo let's get on the slide and let's go! know when I'm feeling like excited and creative about it. And it's nice for it to be sold in a positive way because AI is not being sold in a positive way at all. Exactly, exactly. really isn't. No and I can see that because you know there's now a big pushback about data centers which is totally founded. It's a very confusing place to be and think it's inherently human to want to stay with the things you know instead of let go and go into these uncharted futuristic visions of the future. That's probably been the case. I grew up in the Midlands, close to... places where there was coal mining and stuff and I literally saw the impacts of post-industrialisation Britain. So you see how a workforce could be concerned that, this industrial revolution or this industrial change is going to impact jobs. That's ultimately what the concern is. So I totally get that. And of course, if you're a 50 year old person who's whatever industry and all of a sudden there's a concern that AI is going to take that away I get the concern. What I find a little bit interesting is how we've kind of immediately got to that place of negativity. Obviously I wasn't around during the industrial revolution. But I imagine that that was a little period of time where it was great, this is going to be really exciting. With the AI tech boom, there's not a lot of positivity about it. There's not a lot of people talking about how it could take us all and make us all be able to create. The accessibility to create is so much more connected. You don't now have to rely on... in the industry we're at, I don't need to employ a specialist in 3DS Studio Max to do beautiful CGI's, I can do it myself. So I can connect creatively through AI. And that message is totally not out there. It's totally not out there. No. I know and I think two things come to mind. think firstly, it's generally your outlook of life if you're an optimistic person or if you're maybe like... an optimistic person and I think really it favors the person who's a glass half full type of person in that you know really it's never been easier to set up a business it's never been easier to pursue your dreams. easy that. Well no it's not easy. For sure it's easy. Can't we pay eye at your side? there's that take but then another thing that really struck me when I was at MIT I was like this is like being given a wand from Harry Potter Great power comes great responsibility and you need to treat the AI with respect. Like if you open up your clods, open up your chat-jubity on a Tuesday morning, you're feeling all blobby and if you give it rubbish, it will give you back rubbish times a million. You know, the capacity to create slop, the capacity to just create dribble and mindless nothingness, I just think is massive. And I think going into that being like, what's my purpose? Like what do I want to do with my skills? What do I want to learn? I'm being very disciplined, I feel like our time is not a lack of ideas, there's too many ideas, it's how they're grounded, who has the power to implement them, how they're implemented, that's the important thing. So I came away from MIT being like, okay, how long am gonna live in this life? What do I wanna do? There's no point wafting around, it's very easy to waft around, I think sometimes a bit of wafting. a fun be like you can learn something from that but you have to like limit your wafting like if you do too much wafting you're creating rubbish right and that's bad for the environment bad for everyone it's bad for your headspace I think all of us feel we've got cognitive chaos we're on our phones we're doing too much so if you can't push all those cloudy wafting things away and be purposeful and be like this is what I want to leave as a legacy of my life and for me it's the physical world like the physical world is going to be with us here and I think it's also the tangible it is like the bricks and something that's going to last and mean something it's got a story yeah so for me it's exciting but I can totally see the negativity and I think as I said before the way we to combat that is by having debate, by conversation. We've got to keep discussing different viewpoints coming together. We've got to keep that alive because as soon as people stop talking or just bury their head in the sand or become very stuck in their viewpoints, that's dangerous because then you stagnate and there's no cross-bridging of new thoughts and ideas. And that's the only way we're going to get through this sort of together as a civilization, as a country, as sort of different districts and regions within this country, I guess. What I find quite interesting what's happening now as you talk about the AI slop thing, that's obviously something we've talked about a few times on this podcast. And I always find it interesting that it's almost as if it's humanity's way of, it's one of those little road mark, a sign in the road of us developing AI where the world's gotten a lot better. We get that you've used AI, well done, but this is your question. Yeah. Right. And so they see it and it's the AI swap. It's kind of we've undermined what AI can do. Yeah. And therefore we are going to have it's not very human. If I'm going to read a post on social media I at least want the person to have felt that they've actually wrote it themselves as opposed to it's just what chat.gbt says because again it's that sort of human connection. I think within an architecture perspective as well it's physical where the AI slop is okay you produce a CGI and it's sort of even now or certainly in the very near future people are going well that's... That's not impressive. Because I know all you've is built them up. people will say I can pretty much do that. So it's not going to be impressive. And so what people are going to be impressed by is you saying I built that. That's my work. That was this is what it was looked like. This is an AI CGI. But then that's what it looks like. And that's what people are going to engage with. Where I don't know if AI is going to undermine the digital because obviously this is huge thing to say but I do think that it's it's gonna make digital things so easily accessible that it's almost as if the respect and the kudos from the creating of the digital is going to be lessened by the creating of the real which I think is actually quite nice. It's a very big thing to say but I do think there is something in that. Yeah and I think the process because I guess AI is a tool so you can get from A to B extremely quick CDEFG, like when is it fed back into AI, how is it being channeled and I read something which was like actually Oxford and Cambridge, the way you write an essay now can be churned out by AI but actually submitting a prompt script as part of evaluation of your studies is actually quite interesting because when you test, when you push it, we should be using AI to like really push ourselves, to push our brain. I think as soon as someone says I'm going to use AI to just design my building and just sit and water ski or put my feet up and drink cocktails all day. Although that's a lovely vision. I think the perception today is get rich quick shortcuts. I think it's the opposite. I think you use it as this incredible tool to push yourself, to push a depth of thought, a depth of purpose. What you just said there, I'm always minded thinking about AI as something that is effectively purely mathematics, which effectively it is. When I studied A-level maths, often what we were taught was that the end, say if a question's worth 20 marks, the answer may only be worth five, because what we want to see is the process. Because we want to see how did you get, tell us through the stages of how you got there, and then. so that's 25 % 75 % of the process that's basically exactly what you just explained where the end result the CGI slot is just a little bit the prompting of the essay is actually us directing the AI in the background and then coming from this angle and coming from that angle thought process and then the essay is just the end product. The essay is the 25 % the thought process is the 25 % it's a mathematical process. 100 % and I think that's really going to be the key for the creative and architectural discipline really is that it's useless at all and I think you see a lot online at the being like hey I used this in Revit and look what it built me in two seconds and it's just getting a bit boring now isn't it because yeah we all know it does like seemingly impressive things in two seconds but everyone's a bit like but so what like it's a bit wrong it's never gonna work so I think we're all a bit over that kind of like da-da AI thing and now it's like right let's get to the boring work Who has the control? That's the scary thing I guess. Who has the control? if a building can be designed in two seconds, is that just going to be churned out and architects are all out at work? How does the architect fit into that? is the role, what does society want from building design? These big big questions have to be tackled and have to be debated and in the air. So if we start to come to the end, moving forward, vision, architecture, but also design, obviously we've talked about that, you do it in design, graphics, nothing, even art itself. What do you see? Take us through where you think perhaps the next year, what do you think is gonna happen in the next year? Do you have any idea? Would you like to hazard a guess? next year because we use Hicksfield to generate some of our CGI's and we're not even able to subscribe for longer than a year because they're basically saying this technology is so fast moving that we don't even know when it's going to be in another six months Do you think there's going to be the, is that something that you guys have looked at with a new company to sort of adopt a sort of more agentic process? I just think every brand has to have one of those big conversations with yourself or with companies being like, what do I offer that other people don't do? What is my unique source? What's my USP? You have to be even sharper on this now because just anything generic is going to be eaten up by the AI thing. you have to hold that with all your heart and soul and nurture it and get better and better and better at it and then everything else that's incidental to it. So for SpaceAid, it's us and our clients and us being a trusted point, a point where someone can have a chat with us and worry about what their master bedroom or their bathroom is going to look like and make sure that it's really going to make them happy and that's something on the phone, that's on WhatsApp, that's us having this human discourse. I'm never going to give that to a chatbot, never in a million years. But things like everything else is incidental to that, like the tax returns, like anything that takes time that isn't true to my USP, that's what I will be putting on AI. that's something that, I mean, obviously with careful thoughts. I mean, we've already done, we've done our T's and C's recently, for example. I used AI. to brief the lawyer. I used AI in kind of questioning what the lawyer came back with, but I didn't use AI to write the Ts and Cs. It was part of the process, a part of way of getting quicker but also deeper. So I think at the moment it's a bit back and forth, and I think as it gets better and as agents, I mean, I haven't really introduced an agent properly in my business personally. I would be fascinated to learn from an architect who has successfully. But yeah, I would be aiming anything that's not my true AOSP to be trying to get that as quick as I can so I can spend more time on that special thing that's mine as a business. I think whatever you are in a design-based business, that's how you should think. Like, what do I do? What do I love? What am I really good at? And then like... nurture that as a human thing when everything else gets to bail. That's my take on it. But it doesn't translate to what's happening in a year because this stuff is so quick. So 28 days later, do reckon? Five years is probably more, but I think deep down... I people can try and guess, but I think it's about how we take on as human beings. I think that's the really interesting part of it. And education, I think. Education and the AI slop. I'm fascinated with AI slop. It's just us. It's our relationship with this technology that we have. And it's just a nice little example of how this is not going to be a linear path. This is not going to a straight line. this is gonna take time, we're have to figure it out and the AI sloth is just a little signpost that says, we don't like that. We don't like that. We quite like this, don't like that. And there'll be lots of those little bumps in the road before we get to robots taking over the world. Well, that's the hope I guess. But I think the education thing, I mean was talking to a friend who was teaching and she said she was getting so frustrated because she had students turning up two, three years in and were just doing everything in AI and being like, what's the point? I'm going to be an influencer after this. Like, I'm never going to make money out of being an architect. And she was just so frustrated by this. She was just like, yeah, you know, there's no kind of engagement in the process of getting into the kind of under the skin of it and really deep, going deep in, which is I think why, and I'm not going education at all so I can't really comment but I do think that's where the the fascinating evolution of AI is going to happen at that level into the next future. So yeah, that's where I think it's the most interesting place. For us practitioners, I guess we're just, as I said, just trying to like balance balls in the air and I've got two young children and things. hence why I wanted to set up this show and learn with the others because just keeping finger on the pulse is really important, as you know. 100%. And I think on that note, we'll end it. So thank you so much for joining. It's been a delight. Thank you very much for listening. it's been fun. Take care. Bye bye. Bye.