The Building Was Never the Point

There was this time that a client once asked me to design a three bedroom ensuite plan for her and said that she wanted her living room to have this Sunday morning vibe. That is not a measurement nor a style either. It is just a feeling she wanted. She was unable to give a detailed explanation of what exactly she wanted, and I did not push it too. I only sat with what she said until something became clearer to me.

And I have seen countless people saying that AI will replace architectural drawings and even architects. Some software can now come up with building plans now even though they might not be accurate. And some software, too, can now give a cleaner render than some finished construction. And I won't lie about that.

But that client I talk about didn't ask me for a floor plan. What she asked me for was to put her feelings into life, a feeling she couldn't understand herself. And that that of translation, there's no shortcut for it. One needs to have felt spaces differently. The difference between one that quietly suffocates and a room that breathes. How mood shifts when light enters from the wrong angle before one realizes it.

Even after ten years, architecture will still continue to exist. And I don't think any version of it will disappear soon because everything about architecture is that it needs human interaction to come to life.

And architects who can reason well and understand the feelings of humans inside space will remain. And those types of architects are different from those who understand software, because anyone can just operate it with constant training. And that is what makes AI just finally make that gap more visible.

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_{Images created by Gemini AI}