Neil Leach

• Professor at Harvard University

Updated to cover the latest cutting-edge developments in the field and now in full color,Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligenceintroduces AI for designers and explores its seismic impact on the future of architecture and design. From smart assistants and ChatGPT to ground-breaking diffusion models for image generation and 3D modelling –...

This paper highlights the growing inequalities within our present academic environment, whereby students and academics from certain backgrounds are significantly disadvantaged compared to others. It calls for imaginative new initiatives that seek to redress this imbalance, and points towards the example of an online para-educational platform, Digit...

Together with partners at the ENSCI Paris, ELISAVA Barcelona, University of Split and EAA Tallinn, the Erasmus LSI+ project 'Speculative Urban Futures' will develop novel design methods that encourage the key reforms required to align urban-focused design with climate demands and challenges of the 21st century, as well as create new partnerships in...

This paper highlights the growing inequalities within our present academic environment, whereby students and academics from certain backgrounds are significantly disadvantaged compared to others. It calls for imaginative new initiatives that seek to redress this imbalance, and points towards the example of an online para-educational platform, Digit...

Understanding shifts in creative work will help guide AI's impact on the media ecosystem.

A new class of tools, colloquially called generative AI, can produce high-quality artistic media for visual arts, concept art, music, fiction, literature, video, and animation. The generative capabilities of these tools are likely to fundamentally alter the creative processes by which creators formulate ideas and put them into production. As creati...

Many discussions about AI seem to end up addessing the question of creativity. Can computers be considered creative? Or is it impossible for any entity to be considered creative if it does not possess consciousness? Are human beings so creative, for that matter? Indeed, what exactly is creativity itself? Might AI even offer us some insights into th...

Can AI help us to understand how the mind works, and how architects think? Neil Leach, Professor at Florida International University, points out that, although human intelligence and artificial intelligence are very different things, analogies can be drawn. AI, he argues, can potentially offer us insights into how the mind works, and so too into ho...

This open access book is a compilation of selected papers from 2021 DigitalFUTURES—The 3rd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2021). The work focuses on novel techniques for computational design and robotic fabrication. The contents make valuable contributions to academic researchers, designers, and engin...

What can architects learn from AlphaGo? This chapter explores the lessons to be learnt from the famous match where AlphaGo, a machine-learning system developed by DeepMind, beat leading Korean Go player, Lee Sedol. It explores the ramifications of this victory on a series of different levels, from the global impact of the match on research into AI...

This open access book is a compilation of selected papers from 2020 DigitalFUTURES—The 2nd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2020). The book focuses on novel techniques for computational design and robotic fabrication. The contents make valuable contributions to academic researchers, designers, and engin...

Artificial intelligence is everywhere – from the apps on our phones to the algorithms of search engines. Without us noticing, the AI revolution has arrived. But what does this mean for the world of design? The first volume in a two-book series, Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence introduces AI for designers and considers its positive...

The movie Blade Runner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott, is based on the novel by Philip K Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It depicts a dystopian future world involving “replicants”—bio-engineered robots—manufactured by the Tyrrell Corporation to have superhuman abilities so that they can survive in the hostile conditions of off-world co...

This book presents selected papers from The 1st International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2019). Focusing on novel architecture theories, tools, methods, and procedures for digital design and construction in architecture, it promotes dialogs between architecture, engineer, computer science, robotics, and other r...

What exactly is the Discrete? A style, or rather a design/ fabrication method? And how does it relate to the continuous? Architectural educator and writer Neil Leach – who currently teaches at Shanghai's Tongji University, Miami's Florida International University School of Architecture, and the European Graduate School – challenges deficiencies and...

Computational drafting allows architects to zoom in and out of their creations-in-progress as never before. However, when it comes to digital fabrication processes, changes in scale can have insurmountable implications in terms of structural stability and load bearing – as Guest-Editor Neil Leach explains here. Therefore, he argues, rather than dre...

As Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Paola Antonelli treats digital and analogue design with equal regard. Here she talks to Guest-Editor Neil Leach about some of her decisions. She discusses the distinctions between design, art and architecture; how she keeps a clear head amid the pr...

The first book on active matter, an emerging field focused on programming physical materials to assemble themselves, transform autonomously, and react to information. The past few decades brought a revolution in computer software and hardware; today we are on the cusp of a materials revolution. If yesterday we programmed computers and other machine...

Is copying necessarily a bad thing? Theorists from Walter Benjamin to Richard Dawkins, and from Judith Butler to Homi Bhabha, have suggested not. Drawing on their work, Neil Leach, Professor of Digital Design at the European Graduate School and Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, challenges the notion of authenticity and argues...

Is the focus on mass customisation with its emphasis on generating architectural form misguided? Is the future of our cities instead more likely to be directed towards the capacity to accommodate informational systems and the possibilities that new technologies afford to redesign existing buildings? Architectural author, professor and guest-editor...

Belonging: Towards a Theory of Identification with Place”, publicado por primera vez en inglés en Perspecta, Vol. 33, Mining Autonomy (2002), pp. 126-133.Traducido al español, con citas por: Ana Paula Montes. Este artículo trata de ofrecer un modelo que podría ayudar a explicar cómo es que las personas desarrollan un sentido de lugar y cómo se iden...

From the introduction: Contemporary architectural praxis is in a continuous state of transformation. The introduction of sophisticated information technology driven design tools, constantly updating building information modeling protocols, new spatial policy demands coupled together with environmental regulations and cultural dynamics etc. are all...

What will our future cities look like? Will they look strikingly different to the cities of today, and be constructed with the latest materials and designed using the latest design methods? Or will they look much like our existing cities, with occasional new buildings, but with most existing building stock retained and simply retrofitted with the l...

Guest-Editor Neil Leach contemplates the current status quo of space exploration and our attitudes towards it. Whereas in the 1960s the space industry was driven by the competitive enmity of the Cold War, how are our outlooks and initiatives calibrated now by earthbound considerations? How do approaches towards Space reflect those on Earth? Has a v...

Space Architecture is not just confined to the extraterrestrial. Guest-Editor Neil Leach describes how the burgeoning space tourism industry and cultural buildings dedicated to the legacy of space exploration are potentially leading to more earthbound space structures. Here, Leach profiles Foster + Partners' Spaceport America in the Jornada del Mue...

As Guest-Editor Neil Leach highlights, designing for Space vacillates between two distinct approaches, ‘the mercilessly functional or the indulgently fantastic’ with little middle ground. Here he features the work of students internationally that embody these two discrete strands, from RMIT University in Melbourne, California Polytechnic State Univ...

Keywords:NASA rover;Space Shuttle Atlantis;Russian Mir space station;STS -71 mission;Neil Armstrong;Moon;International Space Station;US;Curiosity;Mars;China;Yang Liwei;Yutu;space tourism;space yachts;Virgin Galactic Spaceport America in New Mexico;Foster + Partners;Greg Lynn;Michael Fox;California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly);Larry Bell;...

The cost of transporting raw materials into Space is prohibitive - potentially US$2 million for a single brick to be shipped to the Moon. This means that the future of extraterrestrial construction rests on the development of technologies that are able to employ in-situ materials, such as lunar dust. Guest-Editor Neil Leach is a NASA Innovative Adv...

The lunar landings in 1969 provided the watershed moment for space exploration, bringing the celestial into direct physical contact with man for the first time. As the second man to walk on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin maintains a unique place in American and space history. Here, Guest‐Editor Neil Leach looks at why Aldrin has chosen to highlight the pote...

Contemporary digital design practice is in a state of rapid evolution. While architects have employed computer-aided drafting (CAD) systems for decades, only recently have two distinct and potent design sensibilities – parametric and algorithmic design – emerged. Nurtured by early architectural researchers and programmers operating in practice, the...

A lunar base development strategy that simultaneously employs robots and humans in a safe, effective and economic manner is depicted in this USC School of Architecture and School of Engineering design project done in the Spring of 2012, under the banner of the graduate Moon Studio. Real time telerobotic systems are proposed as an economically viabl...

Contour Crafting is a digitally controlled construction process invented by Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis that fabricates components directly from computer models, using layered fabrication technology. By obviating the need for formwork used in traditional concrete construction, CC can reduce costs and construction times significantly. The technique...

Several unique systems including the Lunar Electric Rover, the unpressurized Chariot rover, the versatile light-weight crane and Athlete cargo transporter as well as the habitat module mockups and a new generation of spacesuits are undergoing coordinated tests at NASA's facility for Desert Research and Test Studies (D-RATS). A synergetic plan is pr...

Firstly, I would think that the notion of the “game” itself deserves to be taken seriously. Here the “game” should be perceived not simply as a leisure- time distraction, but as a logic of engagement that lies behind social life in general and capitalistic enterprise in particular. The concept speaks of competition and of certain rules of engagemen...

The desire for camouflage is the desire to feel connected. It is the desire to find our place in the world and to feel at home This article analyses this desire through Walter Benjamin's theory of mimesis. This is a linguistic theory that argues that we find meaning in the world through the discovery of similarities, We are therefore inclined to mo...

Code, it would seem, is everywhere. We are beginning to understand that much of our natural environment is based on rule-based behaviours, from the emergent swarm intelligence of flocks of birds and schools of fish, to the complex patterns of snowflakes, ferns, seashells and zebra skins. And nothing escapes. Not even the human body. The human genom...

What is the potential for applying digital simulation for research in urban planning and development? Neil Leach pursues this question with influential ‘street philosopher’, one-time programmer and professor Manuel DeLanda. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

When, in 2007, the History Channel invited architects to explore the future of the US metropolis, Hernan Diaz Alonso chose the medium of film to explore the dark side of the city of angels. Neil Leach asked Alonso how he went about challenging the conventional masterplan and provoking with his dystopian view. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd...

As dense human settlements, cities can be regarded as manifestations of emergent behaviour - not unlike like that of a colony of ants or a flock of birds. Neil Leach explores how software programs that display a similar emergent logic to cities might lend themselves to the development of a new computational methodology for modelling urban form. Cop...

What are the possibilities and implications of global connectivity? Could individual living spaces be wired up to large-scale structures and networks? Neil Leach describes how Vicente Guallart's Hyperhabitat installation for the 2008 Venice Biennale engaged with these themes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Taking its inspiration from biology, digital morphogenesis operates through a logic of optimisation. Departing from the notion of architecture primarily as form-finding that privileges appearance, Neil Leach describes how morphogenesis places emphasis on ‘material performance’ and ‘processes over representation’. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons,...

It is now nine years since the start, in 2000, of our application of genetics to architecture, using the twofold approach offered by biological and digital technologies (and their corresponding fusion). This approach does not have recourse to metaphors or analogies, or "figures of speech", or utopias, or wishful thinking. On the contrary, this appl...

diacritics 33.3/4 (2003) 75-92 Walter Benjamin makes a striking observation about the capacity of certain dramatic events to act like a flash bulb and imprint particular architectural environments on the "photosensitive" plate of our minds. It is as though buildings sink into the recesses of our consciousness as a form of background landscape—almos...

In his article, ‘No hope, no fear’ (arq 6/3, pp209–212), Michael Speaks presents what appears to be an ‘anti-theory theory’, a piece of eloquent theoretical writing in which he maintains that theory in architecture has come to an end.

This volume brings together some of the world's leading voices from digital theory, technology and design to address this question. Offers a snapshot of informed opinion at a crucial juncture in the history of the discipline.

This article offers a critical overview of Virilio's engagement with the world of architecture. It surveys his involvement with the actual design process, and charts the development of his theoretical work from his early interest in typology to his more recent fascination with dromology. The article highlights the positive contributions made by Vir...

This paper offers a critique of the concept of 'dwelling', which has become something of a dominant paradigm within architectural theory. The paper explores the philosophical underpinnings of the concept in the work of Martin Heidegger. It makes connections with the notion of Heimat in National Socialism, and argues that not only does 'dwelling' ha...

Traducción de: The Anaesthetics of Architecture

Traducción de: The anaesthetics of architecture Incluye bibliografía e índice