Scroll through Instagram and, if the algorithm has deduced you're interested in architecture, you will find threads of bizarre, often surreal buildings that seem possible but not probable. There are futuristic swirls of space-age stuff coagulated in buildings that evoke Zaha Hadid. There are Afrofuturist cityscapes with mud towers and spaceship docking stations which might be scenes from Wakanda, home of Marvel’s Black Panther. And there are exquisite modern interiors, complete with lens flare and dust motes so real you could touch them. All of these have been generated in seconds by AI on the back of a few words of prompting.
Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney have made what might have taken an extremely skilled illustrator or animator a week to do into something any of us can commission in a few moments. There is no doubt those jobs are at terminal risk. Architects are already using AI to handle mundane tasks from distributing parking spaces and bathrooms to arranging blocks on an urban plan.
In the more accessible and more ubiquitous visual world of social media, one designer who has made waves through the application of AI to architectural imagery is Hassan Ragab. His striking works veer from dreamlike futuristic architectures in wild natural settings to surreal mash-ups of his native Egyptian cities with steampunk organicism, embracing everything from informal settlements and shabby 1970s towers to elaborate mosques and Antoni Gaudí. “It's nonstop,” he tells me. “Every day there's something new and nobody really understands what's going on. Everybody is rushing in without really thinking about what they're doing.