Beyond the beautiful: Navigating the design space of architectural aesthetics

A computational framework is introduced to map aesthetic categories, highlighting distinctions between human-created competition entries and AI-generated designs. Assessment of architectural aesthetics has traditionally been subjective; however, computational methods now enable the systematic analysis and visualization of design variations. Using 14 aesthetic parameters, the framework applies Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to create visual maps of aesthetic relationships. Two hypotheses are discussed: (1) There is a hegemony of the aesthetic category of the beautiful in mainstream architectural competitions, and (2) that generative models like Stable Diffusion can produce visuals belonging to other aesthetic categories. The computational aesthetic framework is applied to verify both. The first hypothesis is disproven by revealing that human-created designs demonstrate significant aesthetic variation and unpredictability, while the second is confirmed by demonstrating the capacity to produce images in 16 other categories beyond the beautiful. The maps of visual relationships group images by aesthetic categories, encouraging designers to explore and enhance underpopulated areas. The computational aesthetics framework is used to analytically and quantitatively support arguments regarding architectural aesthetics.