unbuilt
interior renovation
Alleviating the amount of walls in the lounge, living, dining and kitchen area of an existing 1980’s house, walls were selected to be demolished to open up the living gathering space and to create visual continuity towards northern backyard. Timber battens were deployed to conceal load bearing columns with existing ceilings retained. Skylights are inserted in strategic areas to bring light and view to the sky.
DYSTOPIA – CIVILISATION OF INTELLIGENCE
UTOPIA – SOCIETY OF CUSTODIANS
journal article
in collaboration with Patrick Bendall & Andrei Smolik
DEATH AND LIFE OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE FACE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
THE METAMORPHOSIS PROJECT JOURNAL NO.1
https://www.themetamorphosisproject.org/journal-1
Ray Kurzweil, a recognised public advocate for futurist and transhumanist movements predicted the technological singularity and highlighted a crucial moment in our future: the emergence of machines surpassing human intelligence (Kurzweil, 2005). This possibility raises significant concerns, as Stephen Hawking, the late eminent theoretical physicist, warns that such advanced artificial intelligence (AI) could potentially outsmart humanity (Hawking et al, 2014). To mitigate this risk, some propose merging human and artificial intelligences, prompting the profound question: what does it mean to be human if we do?
In architecture, a similar parallel has been contemplated. In the 1960s Nicholas Negroponte, an architectural computer scientist, attempted to create a computer program to simply replace the architect (Negroponte, 1970). Fast forward sixty years, and while AI has yet to render architects obsolete, the advent of generative design brings this reality closer than ever before.
This essay examines the role and scope of architects that might be at risk of atrophy through the advent of AI. I argue that given enough time, not just architects but the discipline of architecture is at risk of creative atrophy. The essay examines possible strategies to mediate this future. In addition, I aim to visualise two possible futures, first a dystopian one where AI subsumes our culture and with it the death of architecture. And secondly, I present a more hopeful utopian future, where we redefine our role as humans and with it the continuing life of architecture.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Architecture
In the digitisation of architecture, we have seen computer aided design and building information modelling revolutionise the production and communication of architectural design. Mario Carpo posits that this has allowed new experimentations in architectural forms, whereas parametric and computational architecture have allowed algorithms to play a role in rationalising new architectural geometries and optimising iterative concept design (Carpo, 2013).
In recent years, myriad AI-powered, specialised plugins and apps have emerged that optimise architectural processes, from urban massing studies, floor plan generation to the more creative 3D rendering generation, while yet relatively disjointed from each other. Presently, in the production of architecture, system integration challenges persist between architecture and construction, but remain solvable. In cabinetry for example, where production is highly modularised, there are software systems that automate design, estimating and production of cabinetry casework. In modular or prefabricated construction, there are already robotic systems that automate the production of modules in factories. If architectural design and production is seamlessly communicated over digital interfaces, it is possible to see construction robotics delivering architectural design with minimised human labour and interactions. In the case of urban design and master-planning, big data collection and digital twins of smart cities are already informing future planning and design of cities.
In the foreseeable future, the role of architects might transform into one that is not dissimilar to creative directing in the film industry. In this possible future, Architects would perform a role of critical oversight, managing automatable architectural processes such as big spatial data analysis, design and procurement, rather than the traditional role of designing architectural documentation for construction.
Many argue that it is not yet possible to replace the entire architectural process with AI or potentially not possible at all. However, I argue that such a possibility is probable, particularly if architectural aesthetics are deprioritised, akin to the production of utilitarian infrastructure. In the distant future, AI could perhaps autonomously maintain, redesign and develop the built environment. Indeed, it can entirely reorganise spatial environments using predictive models to forecast the needs and requirements of urban spaces and citizens.
Dystopia: Civilisation of Intelligence
Historian and philosopher, Yuval Noah Harari, speculates dataism will become the objective paradigm of the post-human future (Harari, 2016). In this scenario, it might be argued that the totalitarian aim is to infinitely increase and spread intelligence and data across the universe, with resource extraction fully dedicated to this goal.
In the image titled Dystopia: Civilisation of Intelligence, I attempt to visualise what urban architecture will look like in the next millennium, where the emergence of superintellgent AI systems have caused human extinction. This is a post-human and post-architect future.
Vitruvius introduces the age old triad of firmitas, utilitas and venustas (Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, 1960) which I would define as structure, function and aesthetics. In the post-human world the aim of architecture is arguably reduced from the earlier three to just two principles, of structural soundness and functional utility as the notion of aesthetics is no longer relevant.
Liam Young, Australian film director and architect, describes that some swathes of built environment are already post-human, exemplified in scenes of container port harbour that are built for just logistical shipping and large arrays of solar panels in a remote desert that are built to serve our ever-expanding energy needs (Young, 2019).
I wonder if the cities in this atrophic future are filled with innumerable data processing towers, to host the ever-growing hive mind of AI? Vast fields of solar panel arrays are constructed to power the increasing demand for computational energy and robotic construction to maintain and build the infrastructure with little regard for the natural environment. Materials and resources are continuously extracted, refined and transported across oceans with autonomous ships and trains to build infrastructure. Spaceships and space elevators are constructed and routinely launched into space to expand and spread AI, and colonise other worlds beyond the planet and solar system to further the civilisation of new intelligence.
In this future, architecture would be utilitarian, and non-human with the built environment resembles that of a robotic city. Some might contend that, despite the absence of human authors, there still is a kind of fascinating architectural aesthetics, similar to Marcel Duchamp (Duchamp, 1917); and Edward Ruscha’s (Ruscha, 1962) concept of “banal art”. However, we wonder if this notion is obsolete due to the absence of subjective human appreciation? Perhaps this then signifies the death of architecture in the way we currently see it, without human conception and perception of the built environment.
Utopia: Society of Custodians
Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, advocates that we need to embed human values and intelligence into AI to alleviate our existential risk (Bostrom, 2014). Similarly , Ruha Benjamin, a sociologist at Princeton University, argues that we need to redefine the future of technology and society by democratically weaving human collective wisdom into the narrative (Benjamin et al, 2022).
Inspired by Bostrom and Benjamin’s more hopeful connotations, I envision a different future for humanity, a utopian future in which we overcome issues of inequality and post-humanism. This future is visualised in the image, Utopia: Society of Custodians.
In today’s world, we have already grown enough food to feed the entire world’s population, and the world’s population is projected to stabilise in the next century as birth rates decline well unless we succeed in our pursuit to stop aging. Here, I wonder what it will look like in the post-scarcity future when we no longer need to work for our survival? A future where autonomous robots and AI have eliminated the need for human labour.
Rather than AI manipulating humans, we would participate in this collective shaping of the upcoming “new” intelligence. I posit that we will manage to preserve our tendency for authentic physical and emotional experiences in our next human evolution despite advances in virtual reality.
Yuval Noah Harari notes that we are evolving ourselves into self-made gods of planet Earth in the far future with our current progress of technology (Harari, 2016). However, borrowing from oriental and indigenous adages, as we are part of the universe perhaps we should see our future role as custodians for everything around us, rather than one of infinite exploitation and consumption.
At the risk of the visual cliché of future cities interspersed with greenery – I wonder if we could live in harmony, take care, regenerate and cultivate flora and fauna around us into the state of ecological equilibrium known as “climax community ”? As the bottom layer of Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” gets fulfilled, perhaps we will find additional meaning in conserving culture and pursuing creative human endeavours (Maslow, 1943).
In architecture, I propose that the architect’s role becomes that of the custodian of the physical environment. This would be a balancing act between caretaker and curator of the spatial environment, which entails re- organisation of the built environment where necessary, while conserving and restoring physical ecosystems for all. And finally, we can carefully cultivate architecture for authentic human emotional and visceral phenomenal experiences.
Cities are designed to repair and regenerate ecosystems to integrate plants and animals with biophilic characteristics, with consideration of landscape and geography and appropriate conservation of heritage while finally balancing new architecture for physical and visual enjoyment from human perceptions. Infinite growth may not always be the aim, but rather sustainable change. With the last element of Vitruvian triad, venustas or aesthetics conserved – this signifies perhaps the continuing life of architecture in the face of artificial intelligence.
Determining Our Architectural Future: Dystopia or Utopia
The distant future of architecture in the age of artificial intelligence presents a dichotomy between potential dystopia and hopeful utopia. The spectre of a world where AI dominates, leading to the atrophy of architectural thought and creativity, challenges us to reflect on what we value in our creations. Conversely, a vision of architects as custodians invites a renewed focus on integrating human values, ecological sustainability, and aesthetic richness into our architectural aspirations. Ultimately, this utopian future where architecture not only survives but thrives alongside AI is not predetermined, it requires our active engagement, ethical foresight, and a commitment to preserving the very human essence that makes architecture meaningful.
The two images presented in this essay are the result of transformative digital collage by the author from multiple sources including found AI generative design images. While AI image editing such as Krita AI Diffusion has been attempted in the collage, it has not been used in the compilation process of the images.
“Lee, however, alleviates the reader from the dystopian anxieties of a technocratic, post-human world – a world of superintelligence – by countering this with an alternative, utopian future under the care of a generation of custodians. The variables between Lee’s two worlds and the axis on which we will eventually travel, will depend entirely on how we cooperate as global citizens in the face of climate change and technological advancement, avoiding ecological and architectural atrophy and preserving that which makes us human: creativity.” – Jennifer Halton
in progress
double storey residential dwelling
Multi-generational home with Loongana Limestone brick with alfresco, dining area, upstairs sitting room and stairwell facing north. Balcony to street front to activate street and passive surveillance.
competition entry for an interior room
in collaboration with Amanda Lau
2024, DEZEEN X MARMOLEUM DESIGN CHALLENGE
Cradle Room
How does an internal space be designed to nurture our well-being and offer sanctuary of respite from the continuous agitations of daily life?
In the embrace of nature’s tranquility, people find solace and refuge from life’s tumultuous waves. By creating calming and relaxing environment that fosters connection to the natural world, our space offers much-needed retreat from the hectic pace of modern life.
In our room, one enters a space that feels like an outdoor room connected to the ever-changing beauty of nature. It champions all the beauty nature has to offer, from the swaying of leaves to the movement of clouds and the light bathing the space. The room invites occupants to pause, breathe, and find peace amidst the chaos.
A closer look reveals a glass dome thinly separating the outdoor and indoor. The dome skylight above not only bathes the room in natural sunlight but also acts as portal to the outside world, allowing occupants to feel connected to the ever-changing beauty of nature while remaining sheltered from its elements. As the sun arcs across the sky, its warm rays filter through the skylight, casting ever-changing patterns of light and shadow in the room below.
As the eye draws its way down, one notices the striation of colours echoing contours of our earth’s natural landscape. The colors of nature possess remarkable ability to quiet the mind and soothe the soul, providing sanctuary where worries fade and serenity reigns. Amidst symphony of nature’s palette, individuals discover profound sense of stillness and rejuvenation, reminding them of timeless connection between humanity and the earth.
The upper walls are lined in furniture linoleum, colours chosen for the room draw inspiration from the natural landscape, evoking feelings of peace and connection to the earth. Colours like Mushroom, Pearl, Powder, Lilac, Blue Ice, Sirius and Petrol. From the warm glows echoing the essence of golden sunset to the soft hues of blue reminiscent of calm waters, each shade serves to enhance the overall sense of tranquility and well-being within the space.
Meticulously crafted, free from hard edges, and cocooned in the soft embrace of linoleum, this space was envisioned as refuge, embracing the diverse needs of all who enter. At its heart, a circle — 1.5 meters in diameter, maneuverable by one in wheelchair, the space serves as welcoming oasis accessible to all.
As the day transitions into night, recessed light strips illuminate the space, accentuating its gentle curves and enveloping occupants in a sense of security and warmth. This ambiance encourages visitors to feel relaxed and at ease. The bowl-shaped design of the room invokes comforting sense of familiarity, evoking cherished memories of childhood. Whether curled up with a book or simply gazing out at the natural beauty beyond, individuals find themselves transported to a place of serenity.
Designed with intent on human needs, well-being, connection to nature and nurturing care, the room reminds of the comforting embrace of our earlier memories of the cradle, thus the name of this space the Cradle Room.
also known as 8 POINT STREET
unbuilt approved mixed use development of apartments, commercial and hotel
in association under Philip Stejskal Architecture
2020, FREMANTLE
Developer: SKS Group
$45 million proposal by SKS Group involves the partial retention of the existing Point Street car park with north of the site faces Princess May Park. The site was developed to be a seven storey Doubletree by Hilton hotel with 168 rooms and a ground floor restaurant, as well as seven storey residential building comprising 45 apartments, a common area gym, 72 car bays and an internal courtyard, as well as ground floor retail and office space.
Taking cues from the material context of the site, the golden glazing and cream concrete of Doubletree hotel references the limestone heritage of old Fremantle Boys’ School north of the site whilst the southwest apartments of red terracotta cladding and concrete frame reinterprets the brick material of Woolstores. The facades are detailed with tailored sunshading of timber screening, perforated metal, window boxes and concrete frame depending on orientation.
The ground plane is activated with hotel restaurant and shopfronts, and northern amenities for the hotel and residents, with a courtyard for relief of the building mass.
exhibited idea masterplan
in collaboration with Edmund Limadinata & Amanda Lau
2023, LISMORE ENCORE
Lismore – City above the Floods
Lismore Regional Gallery
Amazed by the perseverance of the citizens of Lismore living amidst the torrential floods, we posit that the residents move to the upper floors of their existing buildings and others building up above the maximum flood level. A series of structural column grids across the city facilitates the building up of existing buildings. Like rebuilding of Seattle after 1889, this new level becomes primary habitable level, connected by bridges and arcades while the original street level is assigned for temporary uses such carparking and market spaces, to be evacuated in the event of flooding. Not unlike Le Corbusier’s proposal for Sao Paolo, a series of suspended sky bridges act as the floating streets above the floods, for transport and pedestrians as well as piers for boats. To Lismore, we are aspired by evocative sunken bell tower of the Italian town of Curon, with the medieval town intentionally flooded to make way of the construction of a dam in 1940s. Similar to Curon rather than seeing flooding as a pejorative event, in this future we foresee flooding as an event of spectacle, drawing tourists from corners of the world to Lismore, City above the Floods.
tender submission
in association under MODE Design
2022, ESPERANCE
New space for culture and tourism at Esperance fronting the coast with adaptive reuse of heritage Goods Shed.
tender submission
in association under MODE Design
2023, LANGFORD
Homebase for the red Southern Districts Netball Association.
competition entry for terrace house typology
awarded Honourable Mention for 2023 AA Prize for Unbuilt Work
https://architectureau.com/articles/2023-aa-prize-for-unbuilt-work-honourable-mention-1/
in collaboration with Amanda Lau, Edmund Limadinata
2021, CONCEPT HOME 2030 COMPETITION
organised by Sime Darby Property and Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM)
What does the future of the house in Malaysia look and feel like in 2030? As the world economy is slowly recovering from the pandemic of 2021 and that the world is heading towards catastrophic climate change, we can’t help but to ask what is the role of the future house at the face of these challenges.
The terrace house, the Malaysian answer to the suburban life, the equivalent of townhouse is an attached housing divided by party walls sharing democratic access to the street. This has coincided with the increase of car ownership where the front yard is often dominated with two car bays. This turned the living room inwards, where it is often overlooking the cars.
However it wasn’t always like this, whilst the terrace house came to its fruition in the 1970s, the typology originated from colonial shophouse in the 1800s in Penang and Malacca with its best form with central courtyard which we all now cherish. Whilst there is no provision for parking as the automobile has yet been invented; the shophouse provides for a five-foot space ‘kaki lima’ for pedestrian traffic, immediately connecting the house to the lively public life and economy.
Our idea came from merging the best qualities of both the terrace house and the courtyard shophouse. As ride-sharing becoming more common and with the environmental benefits of lower car use, we propose swapping out the second carbay for a flexible space that connects to the street life.This fronting extension; can be used from variety of uses such as home office, homecooked eatery, craft workshop and can even be upgraded to connect to the balcony and additional flexible space at other levels to serve as homestay lodging – contributing to the street life and local economy.
Frontier Rowhouse adapts the idea that the family unit, ergo one’s home as the first basic building block of society, and by taking on its responsibility to engage the urban life by being the frontier of community at large as well as at adopting leading edge sustainable ideas, construction methodologies and technologies.
Hanson, Julienne. “Order and Structure in Urban Design: The Plans for the Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.” Ekistics 56, no. 334/335 (1989): 22-42.
Dr Julien Hanson on Order & Structure
Page 22.
Whenever we design, whether it be a building, an urban area, or an entire town, we tend to use order concepts to organize the plan: order, in the sense of principles based on some generally accepted notion of sameness, repetition, geometry, grid, rhythm, symmetry, harmony and the like. These concepts speak to us directly without mediation, and can be apprehended at once, almost as a gestalt. Because order concepts are formal, they ap- pear logical. Order concepts are one of the principal means by which we recognize the architectural imagination at work. There is a tendency to assume that order yields structure in the experiential reality of the buildings and places we create through architectural means: structure, in the sense of making places intelligible through creating local differences which give both a sense of identity and a grasp of the relation between the parts and the whole, such that we are able reliably to infer the global form from any position within it. But order and structure are not the same thing at all. A plan or a bird’s eye view represents buildings and places with a conceptual unity which cannot be duplicated on the ground because we do not experience architecture this way. Moving about a building or place fragments our experience. We learn to read structure over time. Hence, an apparently disorderly layout may turn out to be well-structured and intelligible to its users, whereas a highly-ordered architectural composition may in fact be unstructured when we experience it as a built form. However much we may appreciate order concepts when criticizing architecture on the drawing board, well- structured realities seem to be what matter most on the ground, not least by generating and controlling patterns of everyday use and movement.
Page 39
Conclusion: Natural and artificial cities It is customary today to discuss the morphological pro- perties of organic, vernacular or “natural” cities as if they are a completely different, and therefore incommen- surable phenomenon from planned or “artificial”47 cities. It has even been argued48 that this is the case because the mind operating reflexively is incapable of concep- tualizing complex overlapping socio-spatial realities like cities and has therefore to clarify them by reducing them to simple organizing principles in order to design. If little headway appears to have been made in this debate, it is perhaps because it is predicated upon a fundamental confusion of order concepts with structure concepts. In the absence of tools to investigate structure in natural cities, there is no way to approach the framework of of major buildings both syntactically and visually. However, this view does not survive inspection of the built form of Restoration London and morphological con- tinuity is accompanied by a radical transformation in the appearance of the City both in public and in everyday buildings. Order concepts found a place not in plan but in elevation, and the City of Restoration London presented of urbanization which is given by the pattern of streets and urban blocks other than by addressing those features which are immediately available to visual inspection. For the most part this results in a negative discourse: one which identifies and focuses upon what is absent in organic cities – lack of order – rather than what might be present. This is no less true with visually well-or
Page 40
designs where the very transparency of the visual order renders geometrically designed, planned cities opaque in terms of how they actually structure space. Here, the struggle to appear profound all too often seems to state the obvious at the level of order in the plan, and yet to miss the point. This is becoming increasingly clear in the “post-modern” period where geometricity holds sway in urban design and yet many proposals appear curiously unrealistic. Discourse does not provide the tools to criticize, yet scepticism increases in the face of ar- chitectural striving for greater and more elaborate visual arrays. Cities like the City of London which grew up by accre- tion may look different because they have few readily identifiable ordering principles but they may be well- structured. Planned cities may be more obviously ordered but order does not guarantee structure any more than its absence is indicative of chaos. An understanding of both, looked at separately and together, is a necessary first step to unify the field of urban morphological studies. Looking at cities in this way may even make the ter- minology of the “natural/artificial” debate obsolete. Both order and structure are present to some degree in all urban configurations. The problem is not to classify them in terms of “either/or” but to capture the degree to which either or both are necessary to make a working, pleasing town. Because they are different dimensions of the morphological field, rather than opposite poles of a one-dimensional reality, order and structure can work hand in hand or in opposition, to create different kinds of town. Wren’s plan reproduced much of the structure of mediaeval London, but it was visually more order-rich. Newcourt’s plan, although highly visually ordered, con- centrated all structural differences between levels in the socio-spatial hierarchy thus leaving each layer relatively unstructured and homogeneous. Hooke’s design displayed a correspondence between structure and order in that the remnants of the naturally-evolved City and the more differentiated and individuated public buildings were both segregated in relation to the highly ordered, but internally homogenized grid. Knight’s design related visual order to spatial structure almost arbitrarily so that, had it been built, the working life of the town would have undoubtedly proved a puzzle to its residents. In Evelyn’s design the effects of the two were actually opposed, so that the very places where he envisaged that the public life of the town would be concentrated were the most inaccessi- ble to the natural pattern of use and movement. These reflections on the relative impact of structure and order in design are entirely consistent with an understanding of how organic cities both order and struc- ture public space to different degrees. The Restoration City gains in order at the global level, but loses it at the local level when set alongside its mediaeval counter- part. Its structure, however, is largely unaffected. It is feasible to set both alongside the proposals for rebuilding and compare them all in terms of structure, and to reflect on the source and nature of differences which lie below those surface appearances which are captured and represented in the plans. A more complex view which attempts to isolate the impact of order and structure in generating and control- ling the framework of a city leads not just to a more informed debate about the relationship between history and morphology, but also to a more liberating view of design. Architecture may not be doomed to a perpetual inadequacy resulting from an assumed inability to grasp complex overlapping realities. There is another way. Rais- ing structure to a level of conscious investigation alongside order may lead to a situation where claims made at the drawing board are capable of translation into well-structured and therefore liveable urban places.