168 - Unpacking Architectural Loss

Unpacking Architectural Loss and AI Integration: A Conversation with Jamie and Kurt

In this episode, hosts Jamie and Kurt dive into various topics ranging from post-holiday reflections to the resilience of architectural designs. They discuss the unfortunate loss of Ray Kappe's Keeler House due to recent fires in California and how it impacts architectural legacy and emotional connection to homes. Kurt shares his experience meeting Ray Kappe and touches on the impact of architectural innovators. They also explore the use of AI in architectural visualization, highlighting its potential and limitations while sharing initial results from an AI-driven sketch enhancement tool. The conversation emphasizes the importance of resilience in design, the evolving role of AI in the creative process, and how architectural education must adapt to these changes. A thoughtful discussion blending architecture, technology, and emotional connections to space.

00:00 Welcome Back to the Show
00:26 Discussing the New Music
03:06 Show and Tell: Coffee and Mugs
04:13 Reflecting on the Podcast Journey
08:25 Upcoming Conference and Networking
10:40 Architectural Sketches and Current Events
30:09 AI in Architecture: Exploring New Frontiers
49:26 Concluding Thoughts and Future Topics

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:37

Oh, hey Jamie. How you doing? Hey! Good. Welcome back to the show.

Jamie: 0:43

Welcome back to the new year. Some people might be looking at their return policy and responding their receipts, but

Kurt Neiswender: 0:49

today, today is the the deadline.

Jamie: 0:51

Yeah. 14 days folks.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:54

Keep, keep the receipts.

Jamie: 0:59

I've got a question for you. When we do our intro, you know, that, you know, that your brother, and then you and I kind of have kind of, crafted with all of our photos and things. There's a part in the music about two thirds of the way through where I want to say, and I'm not saying I'm being critical, but I want to say that my ear hears the beat change. Oh,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:29

like the tempo.

Jamie: 1:30

Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:31

I think. Yeah. It sort of slows down.

Jamie: 1:35

It slows down. Like, like there's a spot, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:38

Charlie

Jamie: 1:38

about that. Yeah. You have to ask. Well, I mean, I know that you, you did mention that he did get some new toys. And we have, yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:47

we've gotten what do you call them? First drafts, right. Which is of his musical sketches, demo tapes even. Yeah. But now we need to kick that back into high gear. I think we spent all of 2024 in a demo demo land. So now we need. New, new new music 2025 with all of his fancy dials and buttons and things, toys. I don't want to call it a toy.

Jamie: 2:15

Don't, don't call it a toy. See, I shouldn't have said that.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:17

It was not inexpensive. I don't think it was an inexpensive object. It's part of his craft. Yes. We should ask him about the I do, I did notice that too. And I wonder, cause it's, it's, I mean, I'm going to sound dumb because I, I mean, it's all synthesizer, digital, digitally created, and it has a lot of buttons and little, you know, and I wonder if it was intentional or, or unintentional.

Jamie: 2:48

Well, I think I, I should have prefaced by saying it that way, because that was sort of, I think I'm along the same lines as you. I'm kind of curious from a creative to creative perspective. If, but like, you know, I think it's a good time and maybe Charlie would like to, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe he could do an unveiling and bring some of the music with him and come back, come back on. I mean, it's only been. Like six, six, six, six years since we've had them on.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:20

Well, that'd be cool. Yeah. And, and we, you know, we do a lot of show and tell of coffee and pens and things like that, but yeah, tools of the trade, let's call it. And then we can bring Charlie in. That's a good, good, good reminder. So. Speaking of show and tell, what's, what's in the mug?

Jamie: 3:43

Well, I did mention in the last episode that I did get the, the new one the kick ass blend from the Kicking Horse.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:52

Mm hmm.

Jamie: 3:53

With the, with the little lime green donkey logo on the black bag and and yeah, it's, that's still in rotation right now. And quite good

Kurt Neiswender: 4:04

eyes. I too, then, you know, since it's only been a week since we last spoke, I have, I'm still working through, our coffee sketch podcast coffee from rootless. So near the end though, so now we've got to make a, make a decision at the store

Jamie: 4:25

or your local roaster

Kurt Neiswender: 4:27

or roast roast roast station. So what's in the row station? The next in the road, Rose station.

Jamie: 4:35

I don't know.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:36

I'm really trying that one out here. We'll have to keep working. You can workshop that some more. All right. So

Jamie: 4:45

well, new year and you were starting to tell me in the green room about, you know, your drive home and you were thinking about things and you realize something about this podcast, but also that it's like you're driving home from effectively the first or second day of school.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:05

Oh, yeah. Yep. Well, today is yesterday was the first day being Monday, right? We start, start the week on a Monday. Some schools start on different days, but anyway, we won't go down that rabbit hole. Yeah, I, I, although I missed my window, I should have, I think what I'll be adding to our, our introductions now, now on, at least for a while, a reminder to people That at the moment, until people catch on, we are the only architecture podcast that live streams on YouTube and Twitch and then generate our edited, curated down episode, you know, for audio. And, and actually, you know, the game plan is to, to leverage the tools that I have for editing and try and create some shorter. We had a recommendation from a chatter, a live chat, actually one of my students that, you know, some highlight reels short, you know, short, I wouldn't, I'm not, we're not talking about 30 seconds for a minute, but you know, condensed versions, digest of the podcast that I think we can also repost onto YouTube. And, and then share, share that out. So that's, we have, we have talked about it. We have tried it.

Jamie: 6:34

And then the thing that I was life kind of gets in the way sometimes but yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 6:39

but I was stuck on and you can tell me Definitively now is do I go back to where when to our earliest video recorded? Episode which is somewhere in the high 70s or 80s like in into the 80s So we're talking over a hundred For almost a hundred episodes ago. Do I go back to that file and then start these things? Or do I start from now moving forward?

Jamie: 7:18

Well, you know, my personal take is it's not that linear. And what I mean, and what I mean, yeah, is that there you and I have Not necessarily favorite episodes, but we have, we have favorite things that we've talked about and we've had some really good segments, both with people that we've interviewed but also just really good segments on, you know, art and architecture and process and coffee, coffee too. But yeah, I would, I would, I think we could probably generate a list of, you know, ten favorite episodes to go back to, and, you know, and I would imagine, I would, I would, I would imagine that those are not in any way, shape or form, sequential. You know, they might be episode 92 and then episode 112 and then episode 154 and

Kurt Neiswender: 8:19

sure and so on so in which case they don't. Yeah, we don't have to. It doesn't be so linear. Okay, right,

Jamie: 8:26

right.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:26

Well, that takes a lot of pressure off to see, then I don't have to

Jamie: 8:30

just the stress just released right out of Kurt's body.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:36

Right, right off the top of my head where all the hair used to be.

Jamie: 8:40

Season one, Kurt had hair. I had some.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:47

Oh, you know, so, you know, well, I don't, I don't know if I can mention it yet. I had a, I had a zoom call world. I don't know, Mike, if you want to be specific Microsoft teams call with some good old friends of ours, Brad Benjamin and Corey Claiborne. From the Young Architects Forum days, who are putting together a session for AI national conference on starting your own firm. And they asked me to participate. Maybe, maybe this is my way, not stepping it too much, but maybe people should keep an eye out in June in Boston when AI25 conference comes around. Just, just saying,

Jamie: 9:45

maybe. We have gone to conferences in the past.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:48

Hopefully that doesn't, you know, the AI national doesn't just, shut me all down. Once they hear that, no, that's fine. You know, we're, we're yeah, any who. So I was excited, you know, Corey, you know, Corey, you remember Corey and how exuberant he is. And,

Jamie: 10:07

oh yeah. Well, I know that Brad has to do it. I was, I was there when he was like,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:11

Oh yeah, yeah, you were there behind the scenes. Yeah. So to speak,

Jamie: 10:16

I'd have been instigating,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:18

but, but it was fun to talk with Corey. No, that's fun. He's always so, so upbeat and optimistic, you know, enthusiastic. That

Jamie: 10:29

should be, that should be fun. Hopefully

Kurt Neiswender: 10:32

Corey's job. I don't, he's not going to be on it. I think he's he must be on the committee developing the conference. Because he kept saying, we strong, we, as in, you know, coordinating,

Jamie: 10:45

we, any, is that like the Queens? We, like, we just sort of like, is there a

Kurt Neiswender: 10:51

Queens? We,

Jamie: 10:52

I don't know if there's a Queens, we,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:55

well, there's a Royal, we, a Royal, we, a Royal. We, any who, I just, sorry for the random tangent in between and after it's coffee. It's the coffee talk. You know,

Jamie: 11:07

it's the catch up.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:08

Yeah, yeah. A little bit of the ketchup banter. So, should we talk about sketches though? I think we should. Because they're kind of, you know, there's an interesting little twist that we have creativity wise, but the subject matter There's kind of a downbeat subject and current events. So anyway, I guess, let me let me turn the screen on and then we can kind of go from there. Oh, let me, I gotta zoom into your start here. So I guess, do you, do you want to intro the, the sketch and the subject matter?

Jamie: 11:49

Well well I was going to say, you know, that I don't know about introing it, but it's just sort of, I think, you know, so, you know, we, we, you know, we were joking about, you know, the beginning of 2025 and, you know, how it's been, you know, like, can we, can we, you know, brain check this because, yeah, I think, you know, it, it's, the, the year has started with, you know, arguably the one of the one of the worst or at least maybe not I know that there has been lots of natural disasters, you know, equally large and big, but each one seems to get bigger and bigger. And I think. A lot of estimates that I'm hearing right now is that this might be the most expensive in terms of, in terms of overall cleanup and recovery. And I think, and I think in all honesty too, is that it's, it's not just because of, um, you know, when, when you have tornado damage and, you know, hurricane damage and things like that all devastating. But the sometimes the environmental cleanup for some of those instances is a little bit different. And so I think one of the challenges here is because there's been so many fires associated with the devastation in California that I think that that's, that's put a wrinkle on this one in, in, in a different way. But you know, all that to say is

Kurt Neiswender: 13:08

that.

Jamie: 13:10

It, it's, you know, as we're talking about it and recording tonight, even I think, you know, it's not done, you know, I mean, the, the, you know, the fires are still going you've got first responders and you know, firefighters from, you know, other states and other countries, even Canada and Mexico, I believe have, have sent responders to as well. So it's, you know, this is, this is massive. It's, you know, I, I don't know that area of, you know, of LA. You lived there for a long time. Do understand of it and I mean, I've been there, you know, many times but it's the scale of it just is so huge and you know, having lived in California, I kind of understand the terrain and even, you know, growing up there as a kid You know, it, it always was about the big one, you know, everybody always was, you know, talking about, you know, earthquakes and sort of resilience response related to earthquakes, which of course, you know, you know, fires and other things are associated with that too. And, you know, in utter death, you know, devastation and, you know, loss of life and, you know, properties and, you know, all the other things, infrastructure. But I think this is just something that it just, it's. It's really, really a scale and a presence that's really hard to imagine you know, that, you know, these, you know, imagine hurricane force winds, you know, with fires,

Kurt Neiswender: 14:38

right,

Jamie: 14:39

you know, blowing flames, blowing flames and embers so that it's not just, you know, an hour. And I think the thing that you know, I've tried to wrap my head around a little bit in kind of, you know, and you can only watch so much of the news, you know you know, it's, it's hard, you know, to, but it's. You know that, you know, and you hear about this when you have large, large fires is that the embers will blow and then they will blow like, you know, in some cases, miles or, you know, hundreds of yards or whatever, and then ignite something else. So then now you've got sort of two different fire sources and now the people who are fighting it, you know, they've got sort of almost two different lines of defense that they're having to create. Yeah. Two fronts, even. And, you know, this is this, but when you talk about Hurricane Fork, I mean, that's just at a different scale. And I just, it's yeah, just, it's, it's, it's, it's gut wrenching. It's heart wrenching, you know, to, to, to think about.

Kurt Neiswender: 15:40

So the sketch that you produced is kind of a, I think I appreciate unsolicited. However, I did kind of prompt to, to use a little hint word. I prompted you a little bit by sending you an article about Some architecture in, in LA that is under risk or has already burned. So this is Ray cappies designed Keeler house, right? Or Kelly Keeler. Right. And what, one of his nicest well, I don't know that you can say one of his nicest, but I mean the angle that you captured the photograph, I mean, it's one of, I think it represents Ray cappies, I think super underrated or super sort of. Sleeper, if to use a certain term. Sleeper mid century architect. You know, I did actually meet him once.

Jamie: 16:37

I thought, I thought I was hoping, you know, that, that you maybe had some I tell you, I was technically

Kurt Neiswender: 16:42

in a job interview and he walked over because I was, he, he had started this prefab design and build company in the early two thousands. And I was interviewing with his business partner that he set up the company with. And then they, he was there, we were actually meeting at the job site, which was kind of, kind of a, kind of makes sense, right? You know, you kind of talk about the project and the design process and the product and the building. And, and then Ray walks over and sits down. The thing is that he's, oh, he's always, I mean, I only met him. So I sat down with him, talked about, you know, I didn't get the job. Unfortunately, long story short. But it was really nice. I was a little nervous, right? I mean, I was probably way more nervous than I can remember nowadays. I mean, that was a long time ago, but he was very unassuming and non, you know, very, you know, low, I guess nowadays you'd say low key, but, you know, no ego. He's just interested in like, you know, the, if I could meet their production speeds and demands and how quickly they were trying to. Kind of grow, grow from scratch really. But anyway, so, so I, I got to meet him probably about 20 years ago now. Right. And in that moment, and then you know, continue to be a fan. I mean, being studying in, in, in LA, right. You know, we talk about Cappy's work. And, and, you know, he was a big he was one of the founding members of CyArk, I believe, the Southern California Institute of Architects. So, you know, he, and a few others, including people like Tom Maine and Michael Rotundi, and, you know, some names that are pretty well known in the, in the industry these days you decide to expand. I guess that probably lent himself to the exploration of that company, the prefab company. He's always, I guess, willing to take a risk, right? In in, within

Jamie: 18:49

the profession. And not just that, but I mean, I think it's, you know, the thing that, you know, those folks and I'm, and I, I was I had a feeling, you know, you hadn't said it, but I had a feeling that you probably had some, you know, some story about him. You know, it, it's you know, I mean, I had the, you know, the fortunate, the good fortune of, you know, getting to work with, you know, You know, Michael Rotundi a little bit. But it's I think, like you say, the, the Santa Monica school, you know, the, you know, Southern California you know, kind of architects, you know, in general, kind of parentheses and then and then SCI Arc itself, you know, kind of the birth of that institution I think it is, is things that, you know, architecture students and architects of a generation kind of you know, have a connection to. And I think, like you said, it, the, the, the folks that sort of are in that sphere or in that sort of timeframe or in that orbit, maybe orbit's a better, better word, is that they, they did take risks both with their practice and sort of the direction for architecture, but also the direction for education. And I think that that was sort of an interesting thing. I mean, that's what Sire was. It's sort of, you know, it's, it's birthing a whole new institution which, you know, eventually, you know, late in his career, he gets recognized as sort of that architecture education you know, kind of founder of sorts with, you know, with others, but and then leading it, leading that organization for a while. Got that, the topaz medallion, I believe. But it's, you know, I, I think that those people. Are like you say, you know, prone to experiment and to hear kind of your experience with that sort of seeing you know, different. You know, prefab, you know, as we, you know, we don't even talk about prefab anymore. And now we're just, now we're just talking about 3d printing buildings,

Kurt Neiswender: 20:41

right? Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I think that's the thing is 20 years ago, it was, it was the, the cutting edge, right. It was like, Can we actually do this? And even before 20 years ago, but I mean, it was still something that like many people tried and, and it, it never, they never take off. And, and nowadays, I think to varying degrees, I mean, I'm working with prefab stuff and it's like, oh yeah, that's just because we, it's faster. Right? Right. Yeah, there's, it's, it's,

Jamie: 21:15

it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's more of a process, you know, and, and sort of distribution system, you know, chain of goods kind of situation and, and just varying levels of technology that can be employed, you know, for a particular project. You know, we also had that sort of weird, I guess, in between sort of prefab and 3d printed, we had that sort of like, everybody was fascinated with containers. But yeah, I mean, there were, I mean, people were fascinated with containers before prefab too, but it's, you know, I think it's, you know, that one, that's just sort of a, that's, that's a, that's a conversation for a different day.

Kurt Neiswender: 21:51

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, so with the sketch well, so first of all, so this is the Keeler residence, which, so now it has burned. It's a loss, right? It's a loss, this building. And, and I found that I found that article and I sent, sent it to you and then you generated the sketch. So now we have this, I mean, this is the memory is now what we have left, right? Is essentially not to get too esoteric about it, but you know, the sketch, the aspect of the sketch captured on page, you know, is now all we can remember photographs, things that, you know, now you can't visit it, you know, nearby. We're still under a threat, but I think it's. Not burned is the Eames house, correct? Which I mean, if anybody in architecture school practice, whatever interest in architecture, even if you're not an architect, you're interested in architecture, you probably heard about the Eames house in the Eames residence and studio, if you want to get real formal about it. But you know, a case study house was the keeler house one of the case studies or another?

Jamie: 22:58

No, the keeler house. Yeah, it was like you know, was one of his later projects, right? Actually. But it, but again, it's that sort of level of craft and sort of throwback modernism. That, you know, looked at sort of mid century design and, and, and kind of brought it forward you know, in, and it, what was interesting was, like you said, the, the sketch really kind of captures sort of one vignette moment of the building and I think hopefully it does it justice but it, it, there were some things in the photo that you're really, really evident. I have not been to the house. I've only seen it and I knew of his work. Um, and then, you know, sought out a good photograph and this one sort of just jumped out at me, you know, interiors and exteriors. And there was a couple sketch drawings of the house from one of his archives that but the joinery of these sort of large timber members to kind of create this kind of layering of space. Both as volume and mass and interior and exterior and deck and condition space, you know, really was fascinating to me. And I, and it, the building's really designed in section. There's, you know, it's, it feels very California. It's, you know, you know, very of that place and to see something like this, you know, and know that it's gone, you know, is, is heart wrenching. I mean, it's just, it's, I mean, this is

Kurt Neiswender: 24:31

something that's totally irreplaceable. Yeah, there's, there's also like Cappy also, you know in, in many of his houses, I mean, had, he was so good at creating these layers that you said in section. So there's these, you know, there's a few steps and then go up to another level and there's like hardly any railings in his houses and you can't do that anymore, right? Like, there's no way you can actually build that and pass code. The way he got away with some of these moves you know, his codes change, which, you know, so that's not to, to make it sound like, oh, he was doing things off, off the book, but you know, there was just, you just can't, there's no way to replicate this, this house. And, and, you know, that's the, that's the part and it's not just this house. But anybody, anybody in that city that, that has lost a house in the fire. I mean, it's the same thing, whether or not, and that's what I, you know, I brought it up in class yesterday morning. Well, in both classes, I just can't not say, you know, not, not only because I, you know, spent time in LA, but as architects, I feel that we have to discuss these things Because this is what we do, right? We design these buildings for people. And, and if the building is lost, right, there's a, there's a connection that the people have to their building, especially a house, you know, commercial structures are a little bit different, but homes are, you know, something that has such an emotional connection that, you know, take all the. paperwork aside, that's going to, you know, as you pointed out the cost and expense of like how this thing is going to get, you know, restored at some, in some fashion, but you know, there's that intangible element of it that I, I, I, I don't, I don't know, maybe not, maybe I think a little differently. And no, I mean, it's,

Jamie: 26:46

it's, it's not even, you know, it's not even romanticizing the comment that romanticizing doesn't even sort of do justice. What you're saying is it's that, You know, as architects, we do, you know, we do have this connection to these, these places and these buildings. You know, as they, you're, you're kind of imbuing meaning to this built form and, and then the people who occupy it, you know, add a whole nother layer. Of meaning to it as well, you know, so for us, you know, as sort of, you know, three or four or five or six layers, you know, distant from this building, we're looking at it more as architects who admire the architect, admire the place, admire the skill. Admire the time period, you know, you know, from an architecture history and theory perspective, right? But then, you know, even the everyday, you know, where it's any building you know, people kind of imbue their own connection to that building, that place. And that sense of landmark or location orientation and that, that sense of loss to those things is is crazy. It's, it's hard, it's hard to put words to it. You know, as a preservationist, you know, both of which I think, you know, both of us sort of ascribed to that as well is there are, you know, difficult discussions about, You know, losing a historic asset, you know, and historic is sort of, I'm using that in the broadest sense of the term where, you know, historic from the standpoint of having meaning for someone, you know, and, and I think that really anything has meaning at some point, right, as a historic asset, you know, a lot of preservation discussions are related to, you know, You know, maintenance of these buildings so that we don't lose them that way. And that's usually where that sort of conversation lies, you know, and it's now in, in the work that I do, especially is. It's not just about maintaining these buildings and, or even giving them new life. If somebody is trying to redevelop a property, but it's also finding a way to, to add that the, the concept of resilience to these buildings, because yes, you know, they are. You know, they're, they're. You know, fire danger, you know weather, you know, climate events, you know, all of those things really can start to affect these historic assets as well. And, and so that, that's a real thing. That's a real discussion. That's a, that's a today discussion that no one has the answer to that no one has figured out all the boxes to check all the steps that we need to take. But I think that for you talking to architecture students. Who are, you know, entering this world, you know, potentially looking at what their future in practice, whatever that may be, you know, whatever career path, or even if it's just as patron of architecture. At the end of the day, these are all realities we all have to start to grapple with.

Kurt Neiswender: 29:52

Yeah. Thanks. I, I think I did mention resilient design, you know, can't not say that as well yesterday as a part of trends you know, yesterday's lecture kind of was one of those that sets the tone for, you know, the rest of the semester. And so it's, it's kind of The high level, like, here's where we're gonna, here's where we're heading, you know and yeah, so I, I didn't forget to plant that seed as well. So, so, yeah, you know, it'd be fun to, again, like I said, you know, it's like, you don't really hear Ray Cappy's name and, and his, see, see a lot of his buildings come up as very often as often as say other architects. And I mean, you know, it would be great fun to kind of revisit some of his other buildings. I think he had, he just had such a creative way to not just think and plan, but in section and, you know, the, the three dimensionality of, Of his projects, but so, so what I did too, I don't, we don't need to, I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I wanted to so you see this sort of line, this little thread that's leading off to the side here is like I mentioned last week, I wanted to talk about, I, you know, I wanted to continue certain test test cases or, or you know continuation of just the development of AI and, you know, visual visualization. And so I took, I, I, I have access to this, this software called VisCom, V I Z C O M which is, uh, an AI software. generative AI you know, visualization tool, but you can, I mean, I'm sure others can, can do this too, but basically I pulled in your sketch and then attached a prompt to it. And then, and then ask, or, you know, basically move the levers and dials to like create a variety of different outcomes. So the prompt was, cause I thought, I thought the, the interesting angle that I could take was, and was this. Is that it's a sketch of a renowned architects, iconic house. Recently burned down in a fire, wanted to pay homage to the architect and the house. And so it's all about strong horizontal lines and cantilevering forms and. Raw wood and glass. So I thought, you know, I don't know to throw in some of these these aspects And I I think one thing is i'll probably need to work on my prompt Engineering for lack of a better term, but what people use so so I I ran through a variety. I didn't pull it all in here, right? But I did, I did run through, I just grabbed three of their, let's say they're, they're sort of standard texture, like their, their baseline sort of graphic language, right. The color palette and so on. Like I didn't really mess with that. And so on the left, it's like

Jamie: 33:03

a breezy Starbucks kind of color palette.

Kurt Neiswender: 33:05

Yeah. And so the, there's three images, three iterations. And what I did differently was that the same prompt, but I put three different weights on your sketch, right? So I, the left is 25% weighted to your sketch. The middle is 50, 50, and the right is. 75 percent to your sketch, right? So if you see the, if you, you know, the most obvious is the very left one has like this floating, it, it looks like the house,

Jamie: 33:44

the left one looks like they're burning the house, like, like AI, like the AI overlord, it

Kurt Neiswender: 33:50

does look a little

Jamie: 33:51

like really. You know, they just, I mean, they, they burned it. They pulled off a piece, they built a model. I mean,

Kurt Neiswender: 33:58

there actually was a, they gave up on the coffee that has, that literally looks like flames. And I was like, Oh no, that's not, that's not, that's not what I wanted. What the, the, what I liked about this one though, is that it does, it sort of has this floating thing. And, and then, so then, you know, maybe this could turn into a, an, another exploration down the road where we can. Kind of push things further, but so then the, the middle one, I think is kind of nice cause it's, it, it deviates from your hand style. This you're, or the, the sketching methods that you you know, typically deploy and kind of applies a layered effect to it. And then the one on the right is, is, is not your hand. Although they did, did an interesting job trying to pick up on your some of your techniques, I would say this, this is like maybe you know, 14 year old Jamie versus the Jamie of today.

Jamie: 35:01

Well, I, well, I appreciate that. I thought maybe you're trying to replace me.

Kurt Neiswender: 35:05

So, although they didn't pick up on your, your little, Dappled tree replaced it. No AI can't AI. I don't, I'm not in the camp of AI replaces people. Okay. Okay. Still making expert in the room. I mean, well, first of all, they, they didn't figure out how to make a Denny's mug.

Jamie: 35:27

No,

Kurt Neiswender: 35:28

but I, you know, although you didn't, I guess you weren't using the Denny's mug today either. So, and they don't have, what's, what's interesting too, is in this,

Jamie: 35:38

in this, in the middle one. And this is the thing I think that's always sort of fascinating and, and others will often talk about this with AI when they, when, you know, viscom or others. I, if, if you go back to an earlier episode, I, I dabbled with one of these as well and sort of had this similar kind of Commentary. It's like, Oh, you know, the, the 10%, the 25, the 50, you know, it's like, where, where are we in terms of fidelity to the, to the actual original image versus not. But what I always find interesting is the things that it decides to replace in addition to the actual subject matter. Like the primary subject matter, like the things around it, the entourage in effect. So the entourage, for those who've never looked at any of the Instagram posts that I ever do about these sketches, the entourage is the implement, the sketchbook sometimes at some funky angle, and the coffee cup. Like, those are the three things that are always there. In the middle sketch, Like it looks, I mean, this could be one of my sketches, kind of the way it's sort of rendered a little bit, but it's what I'm trying to figure out is like the implements that they create. I don't even know what those implements are like. It's like,

Kurt Neiswender: 36:51

if you look at real close at the bottom, it looks like there's. Two pencils,

Jamie: 36:57

right?

Kurt Neiswender: 36:57

On the top, there's three,

Jamie: 36:59

three, but they're like one of them caps. Yeah. And like the one looks like partly a chopstick or something like that. So very entertaining. If

Kurt Neiswender: 37:10

we go back to your, your, your original, right? I mean, the, yeah, it's a pilot pen is right there. Although there's some examples, let's say the third one has a more believable pen. It does look like has an eraser, but, you know, that's fine.

Jamie: 37:27

That's okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 37:28

So anyway, I, I just wanted to share, you know, not necessarily trying to compare or equate equate all, all, you know, the sketch to the AI things. I think there's, you know, but just thought I thought of an opportunity that, like, it could interpret what I meant about, you know, being burned down in a fire. And how do you celebrate that? I guess that was my intention was to sort of creating the celebration of it.

Jamie: 37:56

Yeah. Does it understand the word homage that you used as opposed to celebrate? You know, like I think if you were used the word celebrate, you probably got fireworks or something like that. Like, you know, it's, it's like, it's weird, you know, how it's, you know, how it's learning, you know, to, to read the situation or the nuance that you're creating. And so I think that, You know, we've talked always about this is that, you know, there's a level of critique to this, and I'm glad that you sort of shared it in this way, where there's, you know, fidelity that you're sort of manipulating, you know, in each of the in each of the sketches, you know, each of the, each of the results, right? Because I think the thing I've seen in looking at sort of student work of late that tries to use. AI as a way in their process, which I think is really clever, honestly, you know, as sort of a studio way is inserting AI at a certain point in the process to generate additional ideas, you know related to the work that you're already doing. I think that's interesting. I've, you know, you and I've talked about that if, if I could have sort of an artificial collaborator at times to push my ideas forward, why, why would I not like that? I mean, why, you know, you know, but I have to again, go back and pick it back up, critique it, and then move it forward again, you know, and oftentimes that second moving forward is, is really more, I'm doing the lift at that point, right? So the, you know, the agency to everything is, is, is back to me, right? You know, the, the deciding, you know, yes, that, yes, the prompt that I gave it or the work that I was doing, yeah, I hadn't fully fleshed out that idea either. It doesn't know what I'm trying to accomplish. So the, the work that it's sort of generating there is kind of like, it's a little iffy. I think that that's the thing that is critical for. A maturing designer to realize is that there are going to be instances where you do have that aha moment by seeing a visual that something like that creates, it's going to spark something in you that you can then pick up and move forward. There's also going to be a lot of hot garbage that gets created. Yeah. You know, no pun intended, but it's like, it's, it's And, and I think that that's just like, Oh, wow. That, you know, it's, it's like when you sketch something yourself and go, that was a really dumb idea, but I'm, but I'm glad I got it on the page.

Kurt Neiswender: 40:37

Right. And move on and move

Jamie: 40:39

on. And so if AI is doing the same thing, fine, let it fine. You know, we've, we've said it in a previous episode. I'm going to say it again here is I want to be in that seminar session where, you know, somebody. You know, walks us through that process and talks about that level of critique to, to the AI generated form. And then what are the steps that they're doing in terms of moving from that point forward? That's, that's, that to me, that little nuance in there is the part that no one ever talks about to the level that somebody else can, can relate to it and can, and can, you know, internalize it to their process. Thanks. Everything is like it's at that point is like, well, we did this and this, and then we generated some things and, and then we, you know, and then we took the next pass at it. Okay, wait, we'll go, you know, roll the tape back. It generated some things. And then you said, and then we took another pass at what was the part in between there that you did? Like, that's the part I want somebody to spend an hour and talk about, because I think that that's where the real learning goes for all of us. And it's not to say that they haven't, they don't have really good, they don't know what that is. It's just, I don't think that people are talking about it in a way that is really, really where you have tangible things to further that conversation. And that's, that's the part that I think would be super valuable for so many folks, myself included. I'm going to learn so much from somebody else's experience with this kind of process, and how their instincts are applied to that little segment of time. Like, I don't need to know how you generated your design at the beginning. I don't care. I really don't. You know, I want to know that part of the middle. Because that, that, that to me is the part that I can, I can imagine what I would do. I can tell you what I've done in the past on it. And I can tell you where the gaps in my knowledge are in that little, that little frame. But I want to hear what other folks experiences are with it, you know, including yours. I mean, as you look at those three images, what were the things that were your kind of quick takeaways? You know, and the surprise the surprise moments.

Kurt Neiswender: 43:14

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, in a nutshell, it, it, it, and I mentioned this already is that it, it, it said, well, none of them really had the, the same character that your sketch, the, the I don't want to use the word style, but I want to say, you know, they, they didn't have the same life. To them that the sketch did. And I, then I started, that's when I started questioning the prompt, you know, was, is the prompt clear enough, right? Cause essentially AI is trying to guess. What we really want, you know, but we're, we're not, I'm not articulating it to a degree where it can sort of you know, concisely arrive at the solution. So, so, so that's the that's, you know, like, I totally agree with you. It, the learning, the brain work really is, is happening in that space between iteration then, you know, cause the computer is not really doing brain work, computer is just. You know, program to to sort of connect its own dots based on what you're trying to ask. So it's just sort of filtering information into an outcome where. And so the human is the 1 that's thinking like, oh, okay, well, if I take it in this direction. Or, you know, that direction, am I going to get closer to what I want? So there's a curatorial component that then is really the, the scrutiny, right? Like the, it's, it's very nuanced and, and sort of packed into that point in between generations.

Jamie: 45:04

Well, and I think it's, I'm not trying to like, like oversimplify or overemphasize my interest in this. It's just that. There are, there are definitely folks that, that I follow that I'm looking at their work and they're, they are in some respects exclusively working with AI modeling systems to generate architectural environments. And I think it's fascinating stuff. And, and it's clear that they have a very unique and refined process where they're using prompts and, and whatever kind of library of. Learned tools for their AI, you know, because that's part of it too, is your, your AI has to, you know, it has to learn enough to be able to kind of sample the right information to, to generate what you're, what you're hoping that it can do. Right. But, but then it's that, that give and take that's that interplay between the two, between the artificial, between the process that it's, it's going through and the process that you're going through as a designer. That interplay. that I really, really want to hear more about. Cause I can, I can look at somebody's product. and admire it. And I can even see earlier iterations of it and admire those. And I can make guesses about things that somebody may or may not be doing to generate that final product. But what I want to hear is the human being who is part of that, or the team that's part of that, talk about it. You know, talk about that process. That to me would be incredibly valuable. And if there are, you know, you know, folks who are, who are doing that. And, or have done that, you know, to, to the level that I'm talking about. I mean, yeah, I mean, I can, I can, you know, you know, type out a list of, you know, 10 different folks that I know are working in this realm and are doing, you know, really interesting things and can talk about the nuances of certain software over another and certain, you know, certain, you know, parameters to set up and other things, and that may be all applicable to what I'm talking about to some degree. But I think there's also another part of it, because there's going to come a point where the students that you're working with and designers, you know, that are maturing now and, and, and, and designers who haven't even entered the frame, you know, are, this is the world that they're going to inherit too. And, and I think that I, I, I want to understand it better myself. I'm not, I'm not stopping anytime soon. You're not. And, and I think that there's, there's stuff that I'm seeing, like I'm seeing, you know, students create a really flashy, for instance, you know, students, even some, you know, professionals creating a really flashy AI image, you know, and, and but then when you look at it, you're like, you know, That kind of doesn't work, you know, there's even with what you're saying you want it to do, you know, there's something there's pieces of it. That's like, like, why wouldn't you, you know, kind of nod to this or that? Like, do you know that there's an architect who's already done that 30 years ago, you know, maybe in a slightly different form that it's you can tell it's borrowing from that image library. to influence your work. Do you know that? Like, if you know that, that's one thing, but if you don't know that, that's kind of a different thing, right? That's a different problem to have.

Kurt Neiswender: 48:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, we, we will have to get Sarah, one of my faculty colleagues, she's actually running a grad studio this semester developing housing and AI into a infill site in Detroit. I think adaptive reuse. So, so, so I think she's going to be digging at that problem, that point that you're talking about. Right? I mean, I think that's where the meat of the semester is going to be in, right? I mean, because the generation of the imagery will be quick, but then she's going to, you know, force that conversation, right? So I'll, I'll keep in touch with her and then we'll, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to kind of scoop her in here. And and have that conversation, I think that would be

Jamie: 49:35

added to her syllabus too.

Kurt Neiswender: 49:39

I know I should, I should have reminded her. So yeah, well, so yeah, there's, there's a lot of, yeah, a lot of interesting kind of points that we, I didn't expect to, to kind of ping pong back and forth. So thanks. It was a lot of fun. I I, I got nothing else, man.

Jamie: 50:01

It's a new year and, and, and new topics. I mean, I thought, I thought, just to end on this thought for you, I thought, end on this thought that you were going to make the introduction of, like, I took your sketch and then I ripped it up and then I rebuilt it in AI, just like a Kintsugi kind of, or Kintsugai kind of pitch. And like you were Kind of leaning into that, you know, oh, but I wasn't sure I wasn't sure. Yeah

Kurt Neiswender: 50:36

Kintsugi will be back. Okay at some point Cheers