AI is reframing how architects work, treated not as a designer but as a creative partner. Drew Gilbert and a regional panel take on the intersection of AI and façades, and how to train for the shift.
Over barely two years, AI has gone from novelty to a force that has almost completely reframed how architects, developers and innovators work. Drew Gilbert, lead design architect and global AI lead at OBM International, explored it with Alina Valcarce of Valcarce Architects; Amir Shurafa at Danube Properties; Christine Espinosa-Erlanda at Godwin Austen Johnson; Khaled Iskandar, AI educator and workflow strategist at ZKANDAR; Nic Holmes, lead AI design innovator at LW Design Group; and Maya Cochrane, RIBA Gulf Chapter Chair.
Gilbert set the tone plainly: AI is a tool, one that can be used well or badly, and it is worth taking the time to research how it can actually help what you do every day. That insistence ran through the hour.
The first topic was deliberately worded, AI as a creative partner, not a designer. Architects are already reaching for AI tools in the earliest concept stages, and the question was how that has expanded the way they explore façade ideas and architectural expression, and whether it has surfaced forms they might never have found on their own.
Where the panel was most united was on mindset. Succeeding in this era, they argued, is a training process, you cannot jump into the middle of it and expect to be among the best. It takes daily research and trial and error on new tools, and it means training yourself not only in architectural technique but in research technique, AI, and new materials. This is a new way of thinking, and the people who adapt to rapid change are the ones who will do well.
The conversation then took the long view. The panel wanted AI that helps understand the implications of what is designed today well into the future, so that decisions can be judged by whether they improved people’s health and left a better legacy, rather than using the tool merely to make something look a little better while making people feel worse. Maya Cochrane’s framing of health-centred design and ethical AI sat squarely here, and immersive worlds came up as the frontier after that. The through-line was steady: AI is a partner and a tool, and the responsibility for what it builds stays with the architect.