164 - Exploring New Digital Horizons: AI and VR in Design

Exploring New Digital Horizons: AI and VR in Design

In this episode, Jamie and Kurt engage in a dynamic conversation about the latest trends in architectural design, focusing on AI and virtual reality tools. They discuss their recent experiences with digital fabrication and VR sketching, shedding light on how these technologies are reshaping the design process. Along the way, they touch upon classic sketches, conference highlights, and the evolving relationship between designers and AI. The episode also features Kurt showcasing a special coffee blend and reminiscing about Creek Show's public art events.

00:00 Casual Catch-Up and Weather Talk
00:56 Coffee Talk: Halloween Special
01:52 Sound Effects and Listener Interaction
03:08 Political Commentary and Election Reactions
06:21 Pen Troubles and Sustainable Choices
09:35 Creek Show: Celebrating Public Art
16:38 Topographic Art and Concrete Memories
17:37 Exploring Temporary Sculptures
19:52 AI in Architecture: A New Frontier
21:49 Experimenting with Gravity Sketch
22:57 Collaborating with AI Overlords
23:42 The Role of Critique in AI-Driven Design
27:35 Hands-On with Gravity Sketch
41:53 Energy Modeling with AI
43:58 The Future of AI in Design
50:52 Concluding Thoughts and Future Discussions

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey Jamie, how, how is it going?

Jamie: 0:35

It's going really well. How's the weather? It's it's November and it's warm. And if, and if you're curious what that really means, you can drop a comment in or send us one and we can go into how days of the week, quarters of the year, May or may not align with the Mayan calendar

Kurt Neiswender: 0:59

and your tax

Jamie: 1:01

and something about taxes. Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:03

your tax tax

Jamie: 1:05

liabilities. It's all about the diurnal

Kurt Neiswender: 1:07

cycle, folks. It somehow has to do with that. Yeah, that's a good one. Go or go back to the green room on the on the live stream. I think there's a good outtake in there. I really do. There's some nuggets. Nuggets of

Jamie: 1:24

gold. Nuggets of gold.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:26

So, What's in that cup there, buddy? So, I've, I've well, we've, we've been a little on a pseudo hiatus of recordings because of conferences and some scheduling and things like that. So, I've, I've drank a lot of coffee in the, in the interim. Right now, what I have is the last bit of the boo from rootless, which is their Halloween coffee that they put out in an orange bag every year. It's good. It's a, it's a medium, medium light, I would say. And my guess, my guesstimates come from the, the, how hard it is to grind the beans. Oh, I thought you were going to

Jamie: 2:07

say, based on your other consumption, you're like medium.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:13

Well, I could also in relationship, but I had no idea what that

Jamie: 2:16

sound effect was. I apologize. I just, yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 2:20

it almost yeah. Almost sounded like gas, but we'll, we'll look

Jamie: 2:24

for those who are speeding up or slowing down this podcast. Again, you can leave a comment in the chat and tell us what that sound effect really sounded like.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:33

Would love that or I'll hear about it in class. So, but what I, so that's what I've got going on right now, but Rootless likes to have a little fun, right? And their artwork always, you know, Always, uh, delivers, right? They always have custom artwork for every, every variety of coffee, but I haven't yet opened it, but I did want to show you and, and we'll have to revisit this next week with some, with some comments on the flavor, but I gotta, I gotta bring it up to the camera. Cause right now they're selling snake oil, a bag, a bag of snake oil. So let me

Jamie: 3:12

see that one more time.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:14

One sec here. So yeah, for those are watching it's a green bag color, color of a snake. And yeah, we, I can't talk about the flavor, like I said, but artwork by Gavin Guidry. And this came out obviously last week, which is

Jamie: 3:34

the

Kurt Neiswender: 3:34

week of the election. Yeah, no, the week before the election then, sorry, two weeks ago.

Jamie: 3:40

Hmm, is this political commentary?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:43

I'm trying not to be.

Jamie: 3:44

Okay, just checking.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:47

It depends on which side you land on which we won't go into that. Yeah, it was, it was kind of a fun little short small batch that they, they put out, you know, heading into our election,

Jamie: 4:01

so. I think. Like, we can totally go into it, like, there's no hiding, like, what, I mean I mean, this isn't a political podcast for sure, but yeah, there's definitely no hiding, like, our, our, opinions about the election and the election results and, and all that stuff.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:20

Yeah. Shocked. I think still in shock, you know, yeah, that, that sort of

Jamie: 4:25

breathless thing that you just did there where you were just like almost speechless. Yeah. I think that, that covers Kurtz. You know, generally everyone knows by now, you know, and if they don't, if we're listening for the first time, Kurt is really nice. Kurt is a nice guy. Like, Kurt does not like to create the conflict, talk about the conflict, maybe throw shade at the conflict even. To, that's Kurt, you know, that's why we love him. Jamie, on the other hand, sometimes a shit disturber. One word for the day. Stir the pot. I might stir the pot. Yeah. So this is me going, yeah, that was, last week was hard. Really, really hard.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:12

I, you know, I think we just, we need a little more time before we can sort of speak, speak about it. I can't, I, I don't, I mean, there's not much yet, yet to say for, for me. So, so, but Segway to what's in your cup. It's well spoken in a, in a minute.

Jamie: 5:30

I, yeah, I mean, I haven't spoken in a minute and you know what? Arrived on my porch. Oh yeah. Yep. I got some coffee folks. I've been talking about it for a while. The whole world, the whole world knows and has been waiting anxiously for Jamie to get. His contingent of the most recent batch of the Coffee Sketch podcast, Coffee, from Rootless as well. So that I, you know, in my anxious anticipation and also probably a lot of other anxiety decided to bust open a bag for myself. And have enjoyed it. So, so there's more

Kurt Neiswender: 6:09

where that came from. Cheers. Yes. Yes. Cheers. The I did, you know, from the guys this time, they, they ground half the bags and left whole bean. I think I gave you a little bit of both, right? Oh my

Jamie: 6:22

gosh. Excuse me. Remember Kurt is going to say, he's going to mark the tape and he's going to edit that piece out, but. If, if we do it quick, he will, if we wait an extra week, you all will be hearing me talk about this and this whole section, just two X past two X past the really, really loud sneeze. And we can, we can, Oh

Kurt Neiswender: 6:51

yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. I'll try and make sure I clip that. Speaking of Mark the tape, I total non sequitur this, this pen that I have that I was going to write some notes with, I lost, I might've One of my nice fountain pens, kind of sad.

Jamie: 7:06

That is why it's a damper. I use really cheap pens. Unsustainable, Jamie. Well, I mean, they're sustainable. Cause I, I, I work them until they're done.

Kurt Neiswender: 7:19

Like, but if you lose them,

Jamie: 7:21

but if I lose them, I don't feel so bad.

Kurt Neiswender: 7:23

No, but so there's

Jamie: 7:25

that, that's, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:28

less guilt. That thought, that thought definitely crossed my mind when today, when I discovered that I don't have my. I'm, I'm hoping I left it at my desk at school or in the studio and in both cases, it would be highly likely I would find it. Anyway, if you're, if if I'll have to revisit that next week, we might have a reunion and rejoice. I do like that pen. All right. Well, aside from that, then we've, you know, we talked about coffee. Talked about the Mayan calendar.

Jamie: 8:06

We talked about snake oil salesmen, snake oil. Yes. Speaking of which I was trying to think of it and I needed like a minute to kind of get the real going. You know, just like you had a story in the green room that maybe you remember by now. Oh no, not yet. Okay. So maybe at the end of this episode, we'll, we'll get back to it, but it also gave me a moment to think through something too, is, so as you're talking about the snake oil salesman and sort of the guy at the podium doing his thing. Want you to ask the rootless guys if that, if they've ever seen the movie Bullworth,

Kurt Neiswender: 8:43

because

Jamie: 8:45

I did see, cause I did see the bag as well. Kind of in the lead up, I didn't know you had it. That was awesome. But I am curious how it, how it tastes, but yeah, it, when I saw the image, like that was the movie that clicked in my brain. Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:00

yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. But would you believe me if I told you what it tasted like? I would. I believe you. Because it's snake oil.

Jamie: 9:09

I know, but you're Kurt, though. So Honest, honest Abe over here. You're kind of honest, almost to a fault. That's what we love about you. Got

Kurt Neiswender: 9:20

it. Well,

Jamie: 9:20

thanks.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:21

I'll take that compliment. That's a compliment. Should we flash our images, sketches for the day? Yeah! Because there's a few things we wanted to talk about.

Jamie: 9:35

I think so.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:36

And well I guess starting with, I guess in, in, We'll start with some analog things. Right? Oh,

Jamie: 9:44

oh, you were

Kurt Neiswender: 9:45

going to go there

Jamie: 9:46

after

Kurt Neiswender: 9:46

all.

Jamie: 9:47

Thanks. Well,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:48

I mean, it's, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a diss. It's just a

Jamie: 9:53

is it no,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:55

it's a, it's meant to sort of organize. It's organizing our thoughts here.

Jamie: 10:00

Yes. Yeah. So tonight's tonight's episode folks is actually going to be kind of a fun flipping the script a little bit. And we're going to focus on a few things that Kurt's been working on, some sketches and some things, but we did want to do kind of a quick update because it is that time of year that my, one of my favorite events in Austin and one that I was fortunate to be a part of a few years ago is now celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. So so Kurt's got some, a sketch that I did after going to the opening night. And then a couple images from the show that we're going to talk about, but this is Creek Show folks. Austin's used to be free, all public art event. Now it's only free one night this year. But yeah it's up for 10 days. Public art done by local architects and artists. mostly architects who are artists. And yeah. So a sketch that for me kind of cements my relationship with that event to begin. And then and then from there we can talk about the other stuff.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:06

So what year is this badge? Is that what it was? 2017?

Jamie: 11:11

Yeah. So, and yeah, so I slipped the badge in there very discreetly. I also noticed that this is this sketch as posted was in color kind of, you know, partly just because it was just, you know, I, I've done this sketch before of this, um, kind of montage and homage you know, of, you know, people, the, the, the people know the piece if they look it up as photon fable. Spelled with F's and not P H's and yeah, cause you know, cause spelling who cares? But you know, then when I talk to people about it, who've seen it or remember it, I just say the Kraken. And they were like, Oh yeah, the kraken. I totally remember the kraken. Because the story, the story is about a kraken. So there was an original piece of fiction that also accompanied and was developed at the same time as the piece, the light sculpture that we did as an architectural folly that floated over the creek. And then, so 10 days over the creek, 10 months in a sculpture museum shortly thereafter. But It all started with Creekshow, so nod to them. And this year's event was a curated event of all prior artists and architects. So anybody who is exhibiting this, this current year, and it's still up in Austin, I encourage folks to go depending on when this episode drops. The yeah, the, all the pieces are, are re envisioned or new kind of ideas by. Prior artist architects

Kurt Neiswender: 12:44

from the, that had exhibited at Creek show. Correct.

Jamie: 12:47

Correct. Yeah. Okay. So super fun. Kind of a neat, neat way for, for them to kind of you know, celebrate a, an anniversary, but also give some folks some props for kind of paving the way for the event in the past.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:02

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I was, it's always, it's always fun when this comes around. And we get to sort of, you always visit. So it's a nice recap and you kind of pick up on some of the things or the installations and, and, and, and I guess re re revisiting the, the, the concept and the design that you did, which I was wondering, was it the, is it one of the only ones that got reinstalled somewhere or have others been reinstalled?

Jamie: 13:37

I know of it, I know of at least. that have been reinstalled. I would say one of them not as dramatically as ours and then the other, maybe even more dramatically than ours which is kind of awesome. So the folks who had our site before us they had done an amazing piece that I was super excited about. Envious of, you know, just because it was just, you know, really ambitious, really well executed and very inspiring. And, you know, honestly, when I saw it, It was like, okay. And I'd seen folks do things at that site prior and always loved them. I thought some of them were always sort of the most ambitious. Definitely more in the architectural folly vein of things than kind of. Kind of just light, light, light influenced. And anyhow, the short of it was they did this amazing piece, which ended up being disassembled and then I don't know the story behind it. So I'm not even going to try, but it ended up at. Burning Man, so, oh. And got reinstalled and kind of you know, at, at Burning Man, which was, you know, I don't know what its fake was after that probably got burned.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:59

I

Jamie: 14:59

haven't, I don't know. I don't know. I never been to Burning Man. Always thought, I think that's

Kurt Neiswender: 15:02

the the, the cleanse after the whole thing is like anything. Yeah.

Jamie: 15:07

So but yeah, I, I, that. I know that one, you know, had that second life and that kind of way, which is, I think, really cool. But aside from those two, as well as, as well as mine, I'm not really sure. Of any others that definitely you know, I think the, The Umlauf Sculpture Garden in Austin, you know, asking about our piece and giving me the opportunity to kind of revisit it, I think was was pretty amazing. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 15:36

yeah, yeah, well, we'll obviously when we put this episode out, we'll try and tag some of the previous years that we've talked about it. And then obviously the, the year yours was in well, we never recorded an episode that year, but we did talk, we had one that we dedicated to it.

Jamie: 15:55

Yeah. So it's like

Kurt Neiswender: 15:57

the first season, I think so. Yeah.

Jamie: 15:58

So the, well, the, so yeah, it's a yeah, it's a definitely a throwback. Because yeah, anyhow,

Kurt Neiswender: 16:06

good stuff. So the you know, let's introduce some of this other stuff and then I think we probably will find some connections a little bit. I think this is where you wanted to turn the interview on to me.

Jamie: 16:19

Well, yeah, but the one before that, though, the creek show one I wanted to kind of get your your impression of that, that one before we sort of transition.

Kurt Neiswender: 16:29

Sure. This one you mentioned it was involving digital fabrication, right? And some probably, yeah. So algorithm, Mick design or I don't know how much,

Jamie: 16:43

how much that was involved. It's the things that I was able to read from the folks who put their artist statement in it. I'm sure that had something to do with it, but, you know, it definitely was you know, it's, it's basically a network of 3D tiles that, that have been you know, printed in very, very thin sheets of metal. And on that, so that's the front side and it kind of creates sort of an interesting perforation. I do not know I got the impression from the, from the pieces that they're all, you know, based on a sort of a similar pattern. And then as you transition to the back and the sides, which are sort of seeing the side of it here, it has more of a topographic kind of. image to it. I didn't, I didn't say anything about this when I posted this image, but it made me honestly think about the time that I convinced a contractor to pour concrete into form work with paper and weird a weird sort of setup to create a topographic in concrete. But it, it, this, when I saw this, I was like, Oh my God, I'm having flashbacks. And maybe, maybe it triggered me a little bit, but cause that was fun. And those, those totems that we created in concrete, you know, definitely turned out really, really well, but yeah, it has sort of a topographic feel. And that was really what they were looking at trying to do. Was playing with sort of topography and so here the, the side that you're seeing is flat and the topography is suggestive of. What you would see in a topographic drawing and then on the side that is flanked by it with this, these perforations, the, the, the wall itself becomes topographic. It has sort of an undulating form and the way they fabricated it and then assembled it really kind of allows that that play of shape and light. And then it's proximity to the water in this particular shot, I think, really, you know. Kind of gives you that extra effect.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:49

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reflections are, are it's a nice, a nice capture related to the water and I, I could see that the topographic layers and it folds around the, the backside, I guess. Yeah, the back has that sort of,

Jamie: 19:07

yeah, I mean, I would have, I don't know how you feel about it, but I mean, like this shot was sort of the, the, the one that really captures it for me. I've seen it sort of, you approach it where you're sort of seeing it from the right side of this image. So you're approaching it, you know, front on, and there's a reflection in the water. I don't, when I kind of got up on the bridge and got to see this, this way, you know, I was almost like, Oh, I wish. And I, I don't know if they tried this and, or experimented with it or decided that it was just too hard to pull off. Cause these are all temporary sculptures too, but I think it would have been even more dramatic if this whole piece shifted on top of that concrete edge that you're seeing there. It's about the same dimension. And then there's a drop off from that, you know, down to the water.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:55

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I could see that because it sort of interferes a little bit with the reading of of the, or the organic nature of it of that edge. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's a real interesting, I'm going to try and dive into some, some more stuff online, see if I could find more Creek show engagement. And I guess, well, it creates kind of a segue, right? The, the analog of the, the sketch, or, or even the handmade in some, some cases components are handmade part of what we were talking about before we started was. You know, a recent conference presentation I did with co faculty at Lawrence tech and the Dean. Regarding AI in architecture or design assisted AI, I think is kind of how we framed the most recent presentation and you know, my, my attempt or what's, what's, what's the my, my goal out of this year's October was to try and use some of the technology. It's not AI technology, but it's the augmented reality or the virtual reality technology that I have. And I'm trying to experiment with that as a. Conceptual design tool, so I tried to, well, I didn't. I tried and I was able to succeed not all 31 days, but I got, you know, I think 25, 24, 22. I don't know who's keeping count. I got a lot of days. And a lot of sketches done in gravity sketch and definitely the, the, the challenge was. Worth it, because now I feel way more I mean, I still have a lot to learn of the tools in gravity sketch, but I've learned a lot actually discovered to they have a a plug in or call it a plug in, but they have a workflow within gravity sketch now that you can. Go back and forth with an AI visualization tool called viscom all while staying inside of gravity sketch in vr that just I just saw that on their instagram page and now I'm very intrigued. So you could basically model something in, in gravity sketch, which is a virtual for those that don't know, virtual reality, 3 dimensional drawing tool design tool. Using your hands and sort of a digital sketching platform. You can make something then basically drag and drop it into Viscom, the AI visualization tool, iterate on top of it. And then pull, it actually can, it's, I don't know, their, their Instagram page showed that you can pull back a three dimensional object out of the AI tool. So somehow it's like mapping onto three dimensional shape, whatever you sketch, it'll map the visualization back on top of it in three dimensions. which you can then pull back in the gravity sketch and then, you know, draw on top of some more. So actually, you know, since it just came out, I have no examples that I could show. So what you're

Jamie: 23:29

saying is, like, you used your hand and you drew something and you gave it to the AI overlords, and then they did some stuff to it. And then you might be able to snatch it back from the AI overlord. And do some more stuff to iterate. And so you're basically collaborating with the AI overlord. Is that what you're it's

Kurt Neiswender: 23:57

two way street, not just a one way street. So, so yeah. So anyway, yeah, yeah. And it's fascinating. I don't know. I mean, we, we haven't really, I don't remember how much we've talked about. Our stances on AI. I know we had another episode. We did talk about the, the premise or promise the sort of conceptual future that AI could integrate. But now that I'm working a little bit in, I mean, I'm so, so basic sort of a introductory Oh, it's more than just a dabble. I'll say that much, but

Jamie: 24:39

anyway, I think, I think the thing that, that I've been, that I asked you about. Trying to do and I hope you still do it soon because I think it would be worth You know, just I think it would be worth part of this conversation to see you do it even if it's not real time so, you know, if you're wearing a headset and using some toggles dongles pens like I imagine that you're almost like, like moving your fists around. I have no idea. Yeah, cause I mean, it's like that, like, yeah, I mean, yeah. So you're drawing in broad strokes, which is great. Because, you know, as folks who've heard me talk about sort of what that does to free up the mind and creativity, yeah, that's certainly great. Um, you know, then you also sort of can like superimpose like minority report and like, you know, kind of, you know, the digital drawing in the air kind of thing with or without VR goggles. So what I would love to see is like a video of you doing it. Next to the work that is the output so that you're able to describe sort of, you know, it's, to me, it's the, it's all tools, right? And I'm, I mean, and I've said that before is it's all tools. I don't really care what the tool is. But what to me is if, if there's a way for someone to Accelerate their growth as a designer by getting things out of their head, you know, in this kind of other digital realm as a format, that's awesome. The thing that I've always been critical of it is I don't want somebody else. I, A, E, I, E, A, I, E, the AI telling me how to iterate from there. Like that's the part that I'm a little bit skeptical about. Now. I've done the experiment where I've inputted a, input one of my own sketches and then let the AI kind of run on it, you know, using the original sketch as the prompt with some text prompts that I'm adding to it and then generating a new image from that. But at that point, I'm still all part of that creative process. You know, and so, yeah, it's still an experiment at that point, but I think what you're describing is, you know, the pro, the input itself has changed, which I think is interesting, you know, and it's, I mean, you and I are old enough to know about drawing on a tablet. Yeah. Right. Not an iPad. Yeah. Like, like bizarro tablet, like, you know and you know, into AutoCAD and we are living in an age now where it's, we're not just doing throwback films, but now we're actually talking about like, you know, people trying to understand what's Like technologies from, you know, our, our own teenage years. Right. And so for what you're doing right now, my interest is to hear your experience with the tool, you know, in the process and high level critique, you know, high level excitement, you know, all the, all the, and all the things in between.

Kurt Neiswender: 28:08

Well, well with gravity sketch, I mean, like I said, the, the. The sort of workflow with the I, I haven't yet tried, but gravity sketch as a whole, and we will probably touch a little bit on this when we talk again with Eric as a sort of recap of our King inktober since that was my it was kind of my angle on the of this whole of the, of the month of the sketches. But I mean, it's, it's. Yeah, I guess with the 2D output that you could see here is it's a screenshot basically of within the virtual reality space. And when I get to that, it was in the back of my mind to record this, the sort of the actions, right, of creating a sketch. And I just, I couldn't quite figure out how to, But now that you, you know, you, you mentioned a side by side, I think I can try and muster, muster that up and see how so look because what you can't see when you're not in V. R. is the, the depth of, of the space. But the fun part about, or the, the exciting part, I mean, it also is fun, but is that, you know, it's not just a flat piece of paper you're drawing on. You're basically just placing. These lines or objects into space, and you can, you can move them around. And, you know, you can even, even if you don't like the initial sort of brush stroke, you can kind of grab it and twist it and move it. And there are certain aspects where, like, personally, as a, as a, the artist architect, the way I sort of approach things as I, I tend to leave things, like, leave the strokes. Right, leave them there and work around it. So, so some of the drawings I would leave rather rough, right? As these sort of tests you know, drafts and things like that. And then there's a couple that I did. You know, throughout the month that I would grab, you know, I would generate, you know, the, the form that I was looking for. And then I started I did manipulate them. Like, you can literally grab them, tweak it just to, to final sort of touch, you know,

Jamie: 30:36

I mean, one thing, just one quick question. And then I do want to talk about the sketch that you have, but one quick question about this sketch. So this one that we're looking at right now, I'm going to talk about a little bit more. So how long is the session

Kurt Neiswender: 30:50

to create this?

Jamie: 30:51

Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 30:52

Yeah. So most of this, the, so I did try and keep in the back of my mind, these to keep them like sketches, right. To not spend eons, you know, in VR. And the, the first few, this is not the, this is probably one of the more later ones. The first few or say five to six, I probably spent almost half an hour doodling or sketching before I created the final. composition. Then I started trying to challenge myself to do them faster, right, in order to not create the too precious of a thing, right, and treat it like a sketch and let it, let it be what it, or let it be what it originated as. So then this one as I got, now this one was a bit of an iterative process because I was playing around with the polar array, right? So it can, it can repeat your your strokes in a, in a radial pattern. And so I know.

Jamie: 32:09

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause that was, that was something I was going to ask about. This is that, so first impression You know, we're looking at a 2d image and, and as you describe sort of this working in a three dimensional environment you know, because it's just, it's, it's completely three dimensional, completely spatial that you're drawing in and sketching in when you're working in a sketchbook or working on a piece of paper, your X, Y is sort of the page, right? And your Z is how much you can convince somebody that something is in front of something else. You know, and, and, but you're only able to work in X, Y, you know, in, in your case, you actually have the ability to go Z and, and draw things, you know, over the top of one another, spin it to get a different vantage point. And, and sort of you yourself become iterative to that process because now you're interacting with that space, you know, you're not just interacting with the page and fooling the viewer into kind of understanding that Z direction, basically through the concept of perspective, but also some other drawing techniques, you know, in your case, you're actually able to manipulate that space and work within it and sort of reset your vantage point. You know, for you as a designer, but also for eventually the viewer. And I think that that becomes sort of an that's, that's a, a different tangible asset to this process that you get from doing this sketch. But just what you were describing about sort of playing with. the, the mirroring effect of, of your objects. It's, you can tell like as a first glance, first impression of this, you say, Oh, there's sort of a mirrored effect across sort of almost a horizon. That's sort of the, the middle of the sketch. But then as you start to look at it more closely, you realize only some things have been mirrored. And it's maybe, maybe not even completely that it's mirrored, but there's aspects that have been mirrored, but then the whole image itself has been torqued. And so what, what I think my suspicion with it at that point, you know, knowing how you were generating this was there's a mirroring or a duplication effect over, you know, some kind of line demarcation, something of some of the aspects mid process, three quarters of the way, whatever. But then as that occurs, you're also sort of changing the vantage point ever so slightly. And then, and then iterating further so that you, so that you get some replication of image, some pieces, but it's not the whole thing. And I, and I love that you said that you left because your instincts, your own kind of like a own approach is you left some of the lines because. I think those leftover lines of sort of the early aspects of your process really make this an enticing image overall. Because I think if you had done those and said, I don't need those, I'm going to just sort of erase them as I go and sort of refine the image and refine it and refine it and refine it and then do some of those other manipulations. Sure, we might have had a really interesting product. But I think what we now have is a really interesting sketch because you left some of that stuff at the very beginning, but that's that was my, you know, my blush take on all this, but I don't know how accurate is to the to what steps you went through. Maybe you can describe some of that if I was close.

Kurt Neiswender: 35:58

Well, yeah, you're, you're pretty close. Yeah, the, the, the array feature or the, the mirroring and things, yeah, you can adjust the axis, right? Which, which the probably is a couple of axes that are not necessarily parallel or perpendicular, you know, that are slightly skew to where things sort of start to spiral in different directions. Often to different directions. I tried not to do too much of that because I thought it would start getting a little too chaotic. But because this, this sketch kind of evolved as this it kind of regardless of the day. I can't remember what day I called this, you know, but it sort of feels like me a bit of like an asteroid belt the way these objects are kind of floating and concentrating in certain areas. So there's a bit of a gravity. You know, gravitational aspect to it. But then, yeah, the, the, the swooping lines, some of them are early stage and then some of them are actually kind of like how you approach your sky or some of those last little finishing touches. I did throw in a few at the end, as far as a little bit of like atmospheric texture, right? So some of these swooping lines. That are off like that sort of just fade off into the distance. Some of them are early framework, like you said, and then I just left them in there. And then there's the bulk of it is the sort of like series of these stones or asteroids floating around and then some of those are, are atmospheric for, for compositional effect. I suppose. And then, you know, I tried to keep it. With a black and white as, as try to keep it on brand for the, for the podcast, but yeah, you could play around with So one, you know, I noticed, you know, some of my early gravity sketch stuff I was getting into color and then I was like, well, what if I tried to like, you know, curate some of the later ones were minimal on color so that that that part is, is obviously interchangeable. But yeah, you're pretty right on though, about the, the whole, the, the, the aspect ratio or the. The perspectival engagement. Cause you're kind of in space with all of what you're drawing. So it can be, you can, you could kind of treat it zoomed. You could scale it down to like, treat it like a vignette almost like a small object, or you can kind of pull it into full scale and you're basically inhabiting. The sketch.

Jamie: 38:40

Well, and I think that that's the thing that, you know, it's I think what you just described there is sort of, there is some mechanics of the way we're architecturally trained or artistically minded where, you know, that bird's eye view, that worm's eye view, that, you know, that isometric, you know, if you start to mix and match different pieces of that. And do it in a really strategic way, you know, based on the subject or the work that you're doing, you can really start to, you know, emulate a little bit of what you're, what you're doing. I think the trick is, you know, I'm still talking about it on, you know, a two dimensional object to create some of those effects. And what you're saying is, you know, I'm actually sketching, you know, maybe even with those kind of concepts in the back of my mind to. You know, influence the way that I'm interacting with my own sketch, which I think is really, you know, that that's where, you know, the technology and the new tools get exciting to me is because You, you still have to kind of know how to draw, you don't have to be great at it. You've never said that you have to be great at it, you know, whatever great means, but I think you still have to kind of have some of those principles in mind because, you know, just having like an array of a toolkit over to the side where you can punch the button and there's like four options that pop out, you know, like in Photoshop or, you know, InDesign or, you know, whatever, pick your tool, more folio trace, you know, I don't care, SketchUp, you know, I mean, You know, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks, you know, PowerCAD, you know, I mean, all the, all the different things, I mean, that stupid tablet that we had, you know, back in a million years ago when everybody had quick keys and AutoCAD, that stupid thing also had buttons over to the side, you know, with a couple of different options, you know, that whole concept of how all this stuff works is ancient, you know, it's just, now the tech has gotten way better. You know, and the computing power is, it's the responsiveness of it that, you know, that's what I've always said about my inability or reluctance to completely embrace, like drawing on a, on a digital tablet is it's that latency that doesn't exist now, you know, and so for me, it's just forcing myself into a new habit and then, and then asking the question of what if, you know, and so the fact you're doing it, I applaud it, I love it. You know, it gets my mind thinking. And you know, thanks for describing a bit of the process on this one.

Kurt Neiswender: 41:28

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I think you would actually really enjoy a gravity sketch compared to, like you said, as you just said, the, the iPad tablet sketching software. Because of, of those you know, the technique that you have developed, but then having that, that sort of freedom, mean, blank canvas, you know, sort of freedom. So anyway, one of these days we'll have to Get into the same city and get you into the headset and see how it goes. So well, see how it goes. I, I know how it would go, but the you know, see what you can produce and then maybe, you know, you can expense expensive piece of equipment of your own. So all right, let me Click the stop share because I think oh the session. Sorry. I forgot one one thing. I guess the the the the quick quick rundown because I want to because it was my my piece of the presentation that we just had was less to do with the Visualization in AI and more to do with the a new energy modeling tool that Cove tool, or an energy modeling, AI component that Cove tool has created. There's an energy modeling software called Cove tool that we use at the university to, you know, use it to teach students about energy in buildings building systems integration. And so they, they actually have now built their own AI. It, it acts, it behaves more like. GPT than, than a visualization tool. So it, it doesn't, it does generate these reports, which you could see on the right here, but they're more charts and graphs and data. Calculated and sort of prepared in a bit of a visual manner, but not necessarily a rendering And and but the the the benefit there is that you can plug in some simple data about a Building concept that you have and then it will generate this energy model for it Present you the data. And then if you need more information of the report, you just talk to it like chat GPT, and then it will extract the information, sort of explain it back to you in in lay terms, right? Instead of in the technical jargon that the report has a little bit of. It kind of dissects it a little bit deeper. So, so that was my piece of it. And then working with Carl and Sarah, they, they spoke more about the visual the visualization tools, but as a whole, all three of us, the whole premise. Was to talk about the, the design assist, right? So like you were your, your concerns over like being pushed by AI rather than informing AI, right. Or, or, you know, the, the two way street versus the one way street thinking of it like a tool, which is part of the whole premise of our conversation was that it is another tool for us to integrate. But then as a tool, it is you know, speeding up some of our own workflows and, and, you know, helping us be more productive, but also we, if you interact with it in us, as if you're generating sketches. Which is how Carl that are, you know, Dean Dobman sort of describes it is it's, it, it, it think of it like a sketch, right? A digital sketch that is not necessarily the finished product, but a part of a process. And so, you know, all those coupled with, you know, the energy stuff that I've been working on are all, all really like early stage processes. conceptual, you know, sketch based AI iterations, right? So keeping in the, in the sort of mindset of an architect, does that make sense?

Jamie: 45:47

No, no, it absolutely makes sense. I think it's, it's a really interesting conversation that we need to have more of. You know, I think that, like you say, it's, it's, you're, the way you're approaching it and sort of describing it with your colleagues, you know, is it's still iterative. And I think the part of it that, Is it necessarily spoken about near enough? Is that there still has to be sort of a critique of it? And I think that that's the part that you know, might seem painfully obvious, like when you're not necessarily doing it and you're sort of looking at it from the outside, but I think in in looking at work and listening to folks talk about their process or the work that that's been generated and then, in some cases, even inhabiting the work that somebody has generated. You know, I think that it's not that I'm, you know, poo pooing the whole concept of new technology and, you know, and faster computation and create, you know, generating more ideas to, to riff off of all of that sounds exciting to me. It's that, like the, the critique of it, you know, and having enough wherewithal, I don't know what the right word is tonight. To, to critique it, you know, and to take it apart and to, you know, and still ask it, what if, even if the software doesn't want you to do that because at some point there's still a human input to this it's sort of the, it's sort of the whole concept of like, here's the new tool, go and find the limitations of this new tool, you know, push it all the way to the boundaries, make it break. You know, so that we know where the breaking point is, then we can come back and we revisit it and we can keep pushing that, that edge you know, and, you know, some people use that in a, you know, in a way that I don't like. You know, and sort of associate certain other isms and sort of philosophies, you know, associated with, you know, you know, go break it fast and then, you know, and continue to kind of push that. That's not necessarily what I'm talking about. I'm talking about it more from the standpoint of all of these things are tools, you know, but we're still, we're still the ones a developing the tools, but also utilizing the tools. And, and if we're working in teams and working collaboratively with other people. If these tools still allow for that level of collaboration between people and between teams and still elevate things to a whole nother level and then bring in like you're talking about with this, you know, this digital model that you showed there at the end where we're bringing in real data and letting that real data also inform the things that are instinctual about our design decisions. And either validating them or questioning them, you know, and maybe even getting to the point where what I would love to see. And I have never, ever seen a person's present this. This is the presentation that I'm waiting to see is someone literally questioning their model, you know, so that. You know, we've done some design iterations, we've worked collaboratively, we've come up with these big concepts, we input all the data, you know, that we can put into this, and we, we got these results, and some of them just don't make sense. Instinctively, as human beings, as designers, as architects, some of it just doesn't, doesn't feel right. The spidey sense went off, whatever you want to call it. I want to hear that conversation, and I want to hear what's next. Like, what did you do next? Because when you, when you get to the point where you're describing what you did next, now I'm learning something, you know, and no one has, I've, I, unfortunately, I've been to plenty of these sort of sessions. I've listened to a few of them online. You know, I've, I've been to some at conferences and, and that sort of, you know, Turning point, you know, that, that crux of that conversation is oftentimes either glossed over or just not even addressed, you know, and, you know, if I'm not the guy in the audience who like, Oh, excuse me, I've got a question, you know, I'm not that guy, you know, in those kind of, in those kind of context it's cause it's, it's not productive. I don't think in that, in that particular vein, but I, I know that those conversations exist. Hope they exist. I'm optimistic that they exist in that kind of way. And that people who are, who are trying to, you know, bleed at that, that edge with this tech. You know, in, in relationship to design thinking and design process and architecture are, you know, not saying, Oh gosh, you know, not sure what to do at this point. I don't think that that happens. I mean, I think it does happen, but I think that there's also folks who are pushing through it or who are getting that precipice and saying, Hmm, yeah, maybe there is some limitations to what we just put in as data, you know, or. Or what we know as, as good architecture or good design.

Kurt Neiswender: 51:01

Yeah.

Jamie: 51:03

And, and kind of what's that, what's that conversation look like? You know, that's the part where I feel like we could, all of us could learn so much more. And that's, that's where I'm hoping, you know, some of the stuff, you know, moves to you know, for the benefit of everybody, everybody who's experimenting with all these new tools.

Kurt Neiswender: 51:25

Yeah, well, we'll have to revisit that. The, you know, the, I'll, I'll leave us, I'll leave this episode with the, a quote from a book by Ethan Malik, which was part of our sort of background for the presentation, but just imagine that this is the worst version of AI that you're going to see. Right, because it's only going to get better, right, as it develops. So, the, the iterative process and how you are the expert in the room still in, in this equation. So, like, anyway, so I think we'll come back to, to that because I think there's a lot that you're putting on the table, which is a fun, fun way to, to think about it, because. I'd like to keep exploring, you know, that with, with you and then with some of the faculty and students that were, that were kind of testing, testing the tool, I guess. Well, we have, we

Jamie: 52:31

have, and we have invited, you know, we have issued an invite to your one of your co presenters. So, you know, let's get that schedule.

Kurt Neiswender: 52:40

Yeah. The schedule. All right. Good one.