Buildings Webinar | AI and Human Intelligence in Architecture and Urban Design
the chair
8th Buildings Webinar
AI and Human Intelligence in Architecture and Urban Design
Welcome to this webinar addressing the powerful forces reshaping the fields of architecture and urban design. The world is entering a technological revolution because AI is merging with human expertise and productivity. This drastic change is expected to radically transform how we design and erect buildings, leading to a paradigm shift. Despite this, the mainstream profession is still unsure of exactly how AI is creating a design revolution. We believe that this change should implement human-centred design that promotes health and well-being, rather than continuing to produce iconic buildings as abstract forms. Recent developments in neuroscience will, therefore, determine the future of AI-based architecture, leaving behind the outdated typologies that now dominate architectural education and the building trade.
To gain insights into the coming revolution, we decided to bring together experts in design from outside the architectural mainstream. This is essential for an unbiased perspective that draws upon the latest scientific results on how buildings affect users in both the short- and long term. A vast amount of relevant data is accessible to AI and large language models, and it is already used by a few design pioneers today. The dominant architectural culture, however, continues with its abstract image-based paradigm and is co-opting AI simply to create ever-more fantastical forms without considering their effects on users. We expect that clients and decision-makers will soon ask for healing environments and will stop commissioning buildings proven to create alarm and distress, even if they are favoured by the mainstream media for reasons of fashion and prestige.
A major revolution is coming in how the built environment will look in the near-future. This new appearance will, surprisingly, be rather traditional. The reason for this renaissance is neither nostalgia nor a return to the past, but due to paying attention to science-based data on health and well-being. In this major project facilitated by the latest advances in AI, the architecture and buildings of the future will be amalgamated with public health needs.
Date: 1 July 2025
Time: 3:00 pm CEST | 9:00 am EDT | 9:00 pm CST Asia
Webinar ID: 819 2967 9878
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet the Event Chair
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Alexandros Lavdas
Eurac Research, Institute for Biomedicine, Affiliated Institute of the University of Lübeck, Italy;
Alexandros A. Lavdas, MSc, PhD, is a tenured Senior Researcher Neuroscientist at Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy, an Assistant Professor and Head of Psychology at Webster University, Athens Campus, Greece, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Human Architecture and Planning Institute, Concord, MA, USA. He holds a PhD from University College London (UCL) and has worked at UCL and the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Athens, and taught at the University of Indianapolis (Athens branch). In the past, he has worked extensively in nervous system development and regeneration, and in more recent years he is especially interested in examining elements of visual organised complexity, such as those found in nature and pre-modern architecture, and exploring their psychophysiological correlates.
Dr. Michael Mehaffy
Sustasis Foundation, Arizona State University, USA;
Michael W. Mehaffy, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, educator, urban planner, designer, and strategic development consultant with an international practice. In addition to his work as an instructor at ASU since 2011, he is currently Executive Director of the Sustasis Foundation, an urban sustainability think tank in Portland, Oregon; Executive Director of the International Making Cities Livable conference series; and President of Structura Naturalis Inc., his consultancy. He has held teaching and/or research appointments at ten graduate institutions in eight countries, and he is on the editorial boards of two international journals of urban design. He is noted for his books, book chapters, research articles and professional articles on urban morphology, urban self-organization, architecture, computer science, and philosophy. He was a consultant to UN-Habitat for the Habitat III conference and its outcome document, The New Urban Agenda, and he has consulted for governments, businesses and NGOs on its implementation and related topics. Among his many leading urban-scale projects was Orenco Station, a pioneering transit-oriented development in the Portland region, for which he served as project manager and co-designer for the master developer. After graduate work in architecture, public policy, management and philosophy of science at UC Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin, he received his Ph.D. in architecture, with a focus on urban planning and design, at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Prof. Bin Jiang
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou);
Dr. Bin Jiang is Professor of Urban Informatics in Urban Governance and Design Thrust at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) (HKUST(GZ)). He received his PhD in GeoInformatics from Utrecht University, the Netherlands in 1996, and conducted ten-month Postdoctoral Research at Free University of Berlin, Germany. He has been Professor of GeoInformatics at University of Gävle, Sweden since April 2007. From February 2006 to September 2008, he worked as Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He became Docent at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH at Stockholm) in November 2005. From January 2000 to October 2005, he was Senior Lecturer at University of Gävle, Sweden. Prior to that and during January 1997 to December 1999, he was Senior Research Fellow at Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis of University College London, UK. He used to be Visiting Professor of the University of Vienna, Austria (2016), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan (2012), University of Sassari, Italy (2012), and Louis Pasteur University, France (2005). His research interests center on georeferenced big data, geospatial analysis, and AI/deep learning, not only for better understanding city structure and dynamics, but also for effectively transforming cities to be living or more living towards a sustainable planet.
Sponsors and Partners
Organizer
In this section, you will find the recordings of this webinar to watch, re-watch and share with your colleagues!
What emerged from this webinar is the power of generative AI to change the way we design, envision, and erect buildings. Architecture could become a part of public health, if the profession chooses to draw upon the latest findings from medicine and neuroscience. The participants reported their research on biologically-based beauty, Visual Attention Scans, and environments that boost creativity and healing. Much inspiration comes from the work of the late Christopher Alexander, from his Pattern Language and Living Structure from the Nature of Order. Generative AI is able to join its computational power to implement these ideas as practical tools for diagnosing and renovating the built environment