AI in the Profession of Architecture: An Interview with Ricardo Rodriguez of Bytes & Mortar

In the run-up to the AIA YAF Mission 2130 Summit, the 8 Summit “Crews” were tasked with a series of kickoff conversations, meeting remotely to solidify their collective visions of the future. To focus those conversations, each crew viewed a series of AI generated images prepared by Ricardo Rodriguez of Bytes & Mortar. His work on that series of evolving generative images inspired me to begin my own journey with AI art and conceptualization. I asked Ricardo to join me for an in-depth conversation on the process that he undertook to develop those AI images for the Summit and the broader state of AI in the profession of Architecture. The following is a portion of our wide-ranging discussion. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Ricardo Rodriguez, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, ACI Ricardo J Rodriguez De Santiago, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, ACI, is a self-described recovering architect, futurist, and digital creator exploring the fringes of architecture, technology, and Puerto Rican culture. He works with Artificial Intelligence powered text-to-image algorithms to generate images he describes as “present futures.” You can view more of his AI generated work on Instagram @bytesandmortar and at https://www.bytesandmortar.com.

Paul Wolfe (PW): I wanted to start off with a question that seems simple on its surface. What originally drew you to AI art generation, to using these tools?

Ricardo Rodriguez (RR): So I left traditional architectural practice about five years ago. The reason I made the jump was partly because I started seeing some changes and I wanted a more hands on approach with what I was seeing around technology. Part of my role at my current organization is to look for emerging technologies wherever they happen to be. How we can use each technology to connect with our tools or our products. Last year, I was looking at 9 trends. I’m like, I should go ahead and do a deep dive on one. And I remember having seen an article on Reddit about someone generating images from AI. And that’s kind of what drew me to the rabbit hole. So, I just went at it and started trying and testing some things out. I wasn’t necessarily super happy with the results initially, but I kept exploring it. I ended up trying to use it for work. Then it turned into a bit of therapy, I would say.

PW: You mentioned that it is therapeutic. That’s been similar to my experience. It is a very fun thing to interact with, and I hate to use the word game, but it’s a game. You’re trying to solve a problem to deliver a particular vision in a way that’s different than we’re used to, it’s like hand drawing with digital tools.

RR: I don’t know if you saw, but Midjourney [one of the more popular AI Art Tools] had done an unscientific poll on how people reacted and felt when they were using the tool. Around 90% of people said it helped them with their mental health and that they felt good about using [Midjourney].

And if you think about it, what kind of software do you use that produces those kinds of effects on you, that you could say is actually helpful in a therapeutic kind of way, or that’s a joy to use? I think it’s really something.

PW: I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush here, but there’s a general note in society of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that seems to be more prevalent than it has been in the past. I wonder how much of that is linked to the lack of producing things? You and I have a blessing in a field where there’s a physical product at the end of our work. But a lot of people move numbers around in spreadsheets; these things don’t necessarily allow for physical end products that people can be proud of. So I wonder how much of the positive feeling people expressed about the AI tool is related to that feeling of producing something?

RR: Yeah, I’m sure that there’s a very profound ratification associated with that. I think everyone can relate to that. And the good thing is it allows everyone to explore what their particular perspective or viewpoint is on things.

Also, I think, in general, the people are very accepting and encouraging. I found a lot of people who helped me out. I’ve just messaged someone I’ve never met, saying ‘I like what you were doing here. Can you give me some insights into how you did this or that?’ And most of the time you’ll get a good reaction back.

PW: I’ve seen some evidence of people being extremely protective and proprietary of their prompts and their ways of producing the images and that’s a net negative on how we think about collaborative design processes. I’ve experienced it both ways in my explorations so it’s interesting to hear you say that the community has been generally positive and helpful,

RR: Yeah. And it wasn’t always that people would just come out and say ‘this is the prompt that I used.’ Most of the time it was, ‘this is how I structured it in order to obtain whatever result, or if that’s not working then you try this other thing’ and you do a little bit back and forth. I think most people are positive in general.

PW: It’s almost like teaching. It’s a skill transfer rather than giving you the answer.

RR: Exactly. It’s not a transaction.

PW: And they’re using ingredients with different weights, right? The AI can easily grab on to those and implement them within the generation. So certain words and phrases won’t necessarily generate the same results.

RR: It’s interesting because there is a mathematical component to it, you can give a weighted number or a value to how much emphasis should be placed on a particular word. But the other play is where it happens in the prompt string. Especially depending on the algorithm, placement of the words would define how the algorithm is going to work. If you move it becomes less prominent or more prominent in the image.

PW: Can you give me an example of that? Is it as simple as ‘a blue house’ versus ‘a house that’s blue’?

RR: Exactly. Say you want a poster of a blue house. It’ll attack the string of ‘poster’ first so it knows that the object it needs to create is a poster. And whatever it is, it’s blue. So, the poster is going to be blue. And then house, is it the house that’s blue? You might be getting a blue poster with a house of whatever type of shape. But if you change those the other way, then you might end up getting a house that’s the color blue on a poster. So depending on the order, you’ll get different results.

PW: No easy transition here, but in the broader art community, some controversies have been bubbling up over the past year and a half. I follow a lot of traditional digital artists online and I’m friends with a few of them. In general, they have had a very negative reaction to these tools and in some respects, rightfully so. And so I’m curious to get your take on that.

RR: It’s definitely a controversial subject. I think none of us were and are exactly prepared to completely find solutions, because it’s something so novel. I’m like you, I have friends that are in digital art and I’ve heard the concerns. I am impatient with a lot of them though. For instance, there are folks saying that they don’t have control of what goes into these big data sets that the AI tools pull from. They think that there should be checks and balances so that if you don’t want to be included, you can take your work out of the set. I respect that,and I understand it to a certain degree, but it’s not a perspective I necessarily share.

I think I have less concern with the originality and ownership part of these issues as I grow older. Of course, that’s different than saying I took one of your [digital art] pieces and I created something exactly like it.

That I don’t see as inspiration. So, I don’t believe in copying. But I think there is something to say in collecting a pool of data and information that everyone can use. I question people that are very fundamental towards ownership. They go all the way, saying “this is mine, it came from my hand”. I question that concept because we all get our inspiration from somewhere.

Of course, these tools can now produce something that is in the style of someone and it could be very hard to tell one or the other part. So, I get that concern.

In the work that I do personally I don’t use any artist names as a prompt. Actually, part of the challenge to me is trying to get something that looks or acts or feels like someone else’s without using their names.

PW: I think that violates the spirit of these tools a little bit to say I only want this style of art, I want it to look like this artist, right? The tool can do that and do it fairly well. But it’s not really the way that I see the usefulness. It’s about synthesizing a bunch of things together to generate something new. I also think we’re seeing people react to a threat to their livelihood. It’s a new tool that is enabling a capitalist society and system to take away people’s prospects for work or commissions. It’s not necessarily the tool’s fault though.

RR: Because they do have a fair point there, right? They weren’t included in this selection process of how these data sets were constructed. And then those are being optimized and capitalized on. Someone’s making money from them. Not all of them, but some are. At the same time you, as an artist, put the information out there publicly. You probably didn’t read terms and conditions and you weren’t aware of what rights you had or didn’t have. I think that’s a perfect example of what is going to happen to architects within this decade. If they’re not at the table for a lot of these discussions, you end up with situations like this. And then you’re just combating against a tool because you weren’t involved in the development of it.

The world’s going to move forward and you’re going to be the one in opposition.

So that’s kind of like the worry I have at least for the profession.

PW: That’s a great point, because how many details or little transitions between, for example, a canopy and a wall do you see in the real world because Revit’s programmers did it that way, or the software only allows you to build it that way?

RR: Right. And when I was in practice, I remember there was a lot of ‘not sharing templates’ or ‘not sharing a detail’ because that’s part of a firm’s intellectual property. When you step out of that and actually get to go to different architecture offices, which I had to do for a bit in my company, they all did things similarly. If what we care about is the health, safety, and welfare of people, that kind of language, the language of ownership over proprietary elements of a firm’s work, needs to go away. Otherwise, I think it’s a bit like talking out of both sides of the mouth.

PW: And purely from a conceptual standpoint, maybe more than a lot of art-based professions, architecture is routinely referencing the work of prior architects. Some people like to say that no design is original anymore. Our standard process for conceptual design conversations with the client is to pull precedent imagery. We ask the client, ‘do you want it to look like these other five things,’ and then we synthesize those together.

RR: Yeah, exactly. You do that anyway. The thing is that it can be done exponentially quicker. These tools will have a common place in practice. So, I don’t see the tools themselves replacing a job. I see folks being displaced because they don’t want to learn a new tool. So it’s not that the AI tools and the algorithms are going to displace people, it’s that people that know how to use them will displace those who don’t.

PW: It’s CAD to Revit, it’s hand perspective drawing to SketchUp. You still use both, but the new tool has a preeminence. We have to adapt to those situations.

RR: I think with a lot of these tools they’ll take care of a lot of tasks that we generally don’t like to do. Maybe they’ll allow us to focus on things that we really like to do. You can bet on that as soon as some of the tools end up being able to produce architectural images more consistently.

I think we’re almost there.

Someday soon you’ll get clients who will come to you with an image [from AI] and think that the design is done. And that’s a very hard battle to fight. If you’re saying I want to start from zero and do my own process when there’s already efficiency there. And a lot of these decisions could happen while the client is right there with you instead of waiting weeks and weeks on concept designs. Not too far in the future, larger architecture firms might even take their digital catalogs and train a custom AI tool on them so that it designs in their flavor. That’s a major efficiency for them.

PW: Maybe that’s a chance to reframe, to rethink things. I’m always looking at these tools and trying to see past the headlines, instead looking at how they are actually used. I’m trying to see if and how they inform us about the future and our way of thinking or working.

RR: And I’m with you on that. We should use them as stepping stones. This means I can produce something that’s sharper or quicker and better quality than I could before. But the way of getting there is to get past the headlines. The main thing you have to do is try something.

That’s it. Use it. Learn it. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do with my team and my company. Starting to produce content consistently with some of these tools.

PW: That’s the hope right? That we take these tools, not just art but text and automation and all these AI tools, and capitalize on the way that can replace some of more tedious functions and tasks in our lives. We can use that as a stepping stone to lift society up and move us forward as a species. The way we did with computers.

RR: Yeah, and save resources, you know. There are a lot of causes that we need to align ourselves with and do more for. Hopefully this opens the possibility of doing more of that. Less busy work.

PW: Less busy work sounds great.

RR: That’s a good one to end on, right? Less busy work.

PW: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and the insights. It was a great conversation.

RR: Anytime. I always love to talk about this stuff.