LFU:online

Obtain founded and wide-spread knowledge of scientific, curatorial und publicist adaptation and communication of architecture with a special weight on technology, enabling conceptional and communicating tasks; preparation for jobs, that reflect via architecture: Architectural theorist, architectural historian, architectural journalists, jobs in museums, cultural institutions etc. architectural journalists, jobs in museums, cultural institutions etc.

Machine Learning in Architecture

Machine Learning (ML) recognizes, listens, reads, learns and discriminates. It also writes and paints, speaks, and drives. This proliferation of everyday Artificial Intelligence (AI) is propelled by the exhaustive measuring of objects and the environment. Autonomous systems process also architectural data and produce knowledge. The integration of such practices has crossed the doorstep of the design practice and a variety of methods appear steadily to enhance the architectural tool- and mindset.

This seminar provides a theoretical basis for architects interested in machine learning. The course begins with the historical figures, scientific breakthroughs and failed attempts that shaped AI. We will continue with the first AI appearances in architecture with references to the architectural machine, architectural intelligence and machine hallucination. We will continue with the position of AI in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, where participants will learn about notions like cybernetics, paradigm shift, the computationalist mind, and connectionism. We will explore contemporary arguments pro and contra AI, the morphing of intelligence and drawing simulation. We will collectively discuss under which circumstances data-acquisition of text and images can emulate and aid architectural design. The course addresses, as well, how critical writing and speculative computation can interrogate the transparent lines of techno-politics and culture capitalism.

Throughout the 13+1 sessions, each student will participate in the collective reading and presenting parts of the literature. An array of writing and presentation tools will be introduced in class, and a session with the ULB Writing Center will hone the skills necessary for writing academic papers. As we progress, each student will thus build the core narrative of the final academic paper.

Weekly readings, active participation and discussion, small writing/visual exercises.

30% attendance + weekly task
30% presentation
40% essay

At the end of the seminar, participants will be asked to write an essay related to the topics discussed in class. The essay can be written in English or German. Only participants attending the course regularly will be permitted to deliver the final paper. Weekly attendance and active participation is therefore mandatory throughout the entire semester.
Final Essay delivery: 28.02.2023

Course examination according to § 7, statute section on "study-law regulations".

• Alpaydin, Ethem. Machine Learning: The New AI. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016.
• Anadol, Refik. ‘Synaesthetic Architecture: A Building Dreams’. Architectural Design 90, no. 3 (May 2020): 76–85. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.2572.
• Benbouzid, Bilel, and Dominique Cardon. Neurones spike back: The Invention of Inductive Machines  and the Artificial Intelligence Controversy. Paris: La Découverte | « Réseaux », 2018.
• Bernstein, Phil. Machine Learning: Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. 1st ed. London: RIBA Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003297192.
• Campo, Matias del, and Neil Leach, eds. Machine Hallucinations: Architecture and Artificial Intelligence. Architectural Design Profile, no 277. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2022.
• Campolo, Alexander, and Kate Crawford. ‘Enchanted Determinism: Power without Responsibility in Artificial Intelligence’. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6 (8 January 2020): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.277.
• Chaillou, Stanislas. Artificial Intelligence and Architecture: From Research to Practice. Basel [Switzerland] ; Boston [MA]: Birkhauser Verlag GmbH, 2022.
• Crawford, Kate. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
• Fetzer, James H. ‘The Philosophy of AI and Its Critique’. In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, 119–34. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004.
• Institute, AI Now. ‘A New AI Lexicon: Function Creep’. A New AI Lexicon (blog), 4 August 2021. https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-function-creep-1c20834fab4a.
• Leach, Neil. Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction for Architects. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021.
• Malabou, Catherine. Morphing Intelligence: From IQ Measurement to Artificial Brains. Columbia University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.7312/mala18736.
• Manovich, Lev. ‘AI Aesthetics’. Strelka Press, 21 December 2018.
• McLaughlin, Brian P. ‘Computationalism, Connectionism, and the Philosophy of Mind’. In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, edited by Luciano Floridi, 135–51. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2004.
• Negroponte, Nicholas. The Architecture Machine. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1970.
• Pasquinelli, Matteo, and Vladan Joler. ‘The Nooscope Manifested: AI as Instrument of Knowledge Extractivism’. AI & SOCIETY, 21 November 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-01097-6.
• Scheer, David. The Death of Drawing. 0 ed. Routledge, 2014. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315813950.
• Turing, Alan. ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’. Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy LIX., no. 236 (October 1950): 433–60.
• Vasconcelos, Elvia. ‘The Origins of Neural Networks’, 2020.
• Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1948.
• Wright Steenson, Molly. Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/architectural-intelligence.

Start: Tuesday, 11.10.2022, 10:15 o‘clock.