Talk Series 15

How do Architects use AI, and what is happening in AI development for Architects?

Speakers:

Professor Michael Ostwald, UNSW
Associate Professor JuHyun Lee, UNSW

Summary:

This CPD explores a design methodology that engages Interactive Genetic Algorithms to generate optimised solutions while preserving the creativity and intuition integral to architectural design. It fosters a collaborative process where algorithms augment rather than replace intuition, allowing architects to guide the evolutionary search toward desired objectives while adapting to emerging insights and discoveries. 

This talk was delivered at UNSW on 8 April 2025. Talk duration is 55 minutes.

Speaker Bio:

Michael J. Ostwald is Professor of Architectural Analytics at UNSW, Sydney (Australia). His professional background is in architecture, urban design and legal assessment. He has a doctorate (PhD) in design and a higher doctorate (DSc) in computational analysis. He completed postdoctoral research on geometry and human behaviour at the CCA (Montreal, Canada), UCLA (California, USA) and at the Loeb (Harvard, USA). In 2016, the Australian Institute of Architects awarded him the Neville Quarry Medal for Services to Architecture and in 2017 he was named an EU Distinguished Professor. Michael is Editor-in-Chief of the Nexus Network Journal: Architecture and Mathematics (Springer-Nature).

Ju Hyun Lee is Associate Professor (Scientia Academic) of Architecture and Computational Design at UNSW, Sydney. He has published 100+ research publications and made significant research contributions in the fields of architectural computing and design cognition. Ju Hyun has held multiple academic roles in Australia and South Korea. He completed postdoctoral research at UoN and was a senior research fellow at UNISA. He is Chair of AKA.N and Co-Director of Advanced Architectural Analytics lab. Ju Hyun is co-author of Grammatical and Syntactical Approaches in Architecture (IGI Global) and co-author of Design Thinking: Creativity, Collaboration and Culture (Springer). He has been awarded eleven competitive research grants, including two ARC Discovery projects.

CPD Details:

This talk is offered as a formal CPD activity for architects, mapped to performance criteria PC18 and PC28 in the Australian 2021 National Standard of Competencies for Architects.

A copy of the CPD questions can be accessed here. If you take notes in digital format during the video, you will be able to copy/paste your answers into the questionnaire at the end. 

Upon completion of the video, a link to the CPD questionnaire will be unlocked. Submit your answers via that link to earn 1 formal CPD point and receive your certificate for record-keeping purposes. Note: The questionnaire link will only load if the video is viewed from this webpage. If you navigate to YouTube to view the video, you will not be able to access it.