how my archischool evolves AI from generic copycat to personal design partner
By tim spears I designboom
With AI sparking the debate over the future of design, My Archischool shifts the perception of technology replacing professionals. The institution, dedicated to architectural education, explores how AI can be used to build their own architectural models and preserve their identity. By training custom architectural AI models with their own design data, My Archischool proves that AI models can become a personalized collaborative partner for creators. Most importantly, this educational approach eliminates the risk of stolen copyrights associated with web-scraping commercial engines, ensuring that every generated pixel remains entirely within the authorship of the architect.
student design with digital 3D model by Albus Oscar Chung, rendered by his own trained AI-model | all images courtesy of My Archischool
Based in Hong Kong, My Archischool operates on the idea that a good architectural design is a valuable intellectual property and a structured solution to environmental and spatial challenges. To scale this intrinsic value, the institution teaches design students to treat their archives, including design sketches, renderings, and material palettes, as a protected goldmine of training data. A method that leads to a data library, which under high-security measures, empowers creators to amplify their unique visual identity with complete creative control, going against the generic default of commercial models.
sketch paper model by Albus Oscar Chung as the seed for AI training
The operational workflow spans the entire lifecycle of a project, just like the current architectural design process, which undergoes sketching, model building, and detailing stages. In the initial form-making phase, a physical model serves as the seed to be rendered through the custom AI model. By capturing photos of these tactile structures, the model explores mass disposition and building heights within an urban context, while maintaining the designer’s signature aesthetic. As the project transitions into the building stage, layouts are transformed into immersive digital environments. At this stage, designers can generate a complete 360-degree walk-through within minutes from just a few model views, demonstrating circulation patterns and spatial associations.
forms and mass dispositional options generated by Albus’ own AI-model
When the project enters the detailing design stage, the custom AI model, drawing directly from the architect’s personal design library, coordinates a wide amount of complex detailing, mastering tight control in micro-proportions, intricate seam lines, material’s orientation and color alignment. The tech behind this is called ‘Photogrammetry’, acting like Google Maps, to create photorealistic spaces that look like 3D. A challenging implementation that makes the architectural visualization stand out from the ordinary.
My Archischool’s breakthrough technology democratizes the design process by lowering the financial barriers associated with traditional rendering software and shortening the timeline between concept and high-fidelity reality, allowing creators to focus on pure spatial design and put their artistic vision into practice.
This article was originally published by Designboom.