The challenge of contemporary architecture didactics: Designing in dialogue with Artificial Intelligence

The change of technological conditions in the field of architecture is a rapid and constant phenomenon that forces architects of all ages to always be alert and updated. The inability to understand the phenomena surrounding us translates into the inability to control them and the risk of quickly becoming obsolete and losing contact with reality. Contemporary architects must be aware: they must possess a strong knowledge of history and tradition but at the same time they cannot ignore contemporaneity, technology and all those new tools that are inevitably altering their profession. For this reason, it is important to develop a new teaching method, in which students are provided with theoretical and practical notions that help them design by combining the most common skills with the use of innovative means, first of all generative artificial intelligence – which represents the greatest technological revolution since the advent of the internet. Students must learn to dialogue with AI, control it and rework its outputs within a new multidisciplinary and stratified process, developing a critical awareness that makes them "augmented" architects ready to face the challenges of contemporary architecture. As research group we accepted the challenge and the responsibility of developing a new teaching system: during the architectural design laboratory of the Polytechnic of Bari we used it to help students develop their year's projects.