From sketch to final render: how to integrate AI into an agency’s workflow

ArchDaily sets out the specific ways in which AI is being integrated into the architectural production process, from the first sketch to the final rendering.

Rather than discussing the very principle of AI in architecture, ArchDaily looks at the issue that has become central to the agencies: where to insert it precisely into a production chain that goes from the initial sketch to the presentation rendering. The subject is no longer adoption but the articulation with tools and methods already installed.

The most natural entry point is the passage from drawing by hand to the image rendered. The current tools transform a sketch or summary model into a visual completed in seconds, which shifts the cost of work: producing an image becomes trivial, choosing which one to defend becomes difficult exercise. This shift redefines iteration in the design phase, where a large number of variants can now be explored before deciding.

It also raises questions that the profession has not yet had to deal with: the visual saturation of interchangeable proposals, the place left to the architect's judgment, and the protection of the authorship of the project when an increasing proportion of the images produced emerges from a generic model.