AI is pushing the limits of the physical world

Architecture often assumes a binary between built projects and theoretical ones. What physics allows in actual buildings, after all, is vastly different from what architects can imagine and design (often referred to as "paper architecture"). That imagination has long been supported and enabled by design technology, but the latest advancements in artificial intelligence have prompted a surge in the theoretical. "Transductions: Artificial Intelligence in Architectural Experimentation," a recent exhibition at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, brought together works from over 30 practitioners exploring the experimental, generative, and collaborative potential of artificial intelligence to open up new areas of architectural inquiry--something they've been working on for a decade or more, since long before AI became mainstream. Architects and exhibition co-curators Jason Vigneri-Beane, Olivia Vien, Stephen Slaughter, and Hart Marlow explain that the works in "Transductions" emerged out of feedback loops among architectural discourses, techniques, formats, and media that range from imagery, text, and animation to mixed-reality media and fabrication.