Using AI co-intelligently to teach a resilient urban regeneration design studio

Purpose This article discusses a proposed two-semester design studio on resilient urban regeneration that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to the full extent of its current capabilities. The studio focuses on Phoenix, Arizona as an example of contemporary desert urbanism in the United States. Its underlying framework is applicable to other contexts and assumes AI's evolution. Design/methodology/approach The studio's framework combines four interconnected pillars: urban morphology (urban acupuncture, tactical urbanism, space syntax); desert urbanism; AI-supported knowledge creation/archiving, analysis, simulation and community engagement; and urban intervention as a vehicle for exploration. The studio is an R&D vehicle, recognizing AI's rapid evolution. It provides an open-ended model potentially applicable to other climate zones. Findings Because it is still a concept, the main test of the framework's viability can be found in parallel efforts to integrate AI in architecture and planning pedagogy. They increasingly reflect AI's expanded capabilities and point to changes in the processes of resilient urban regeneration, validating the framework's premises, first proposed in the 2023–2024 academic year. Research limitations/implications The studio concept has not yet been tested with an actual course sequence. Practical implications The studio concept is a contribution to current efforts to incorporate AI into architecture and planning pedagogy. Social implications The studio concept reflects an understanding of resilient urban regeneration that includes local community participation as a feature, in keeping with the original goals of urban morphology. It looks to AI to facilitate this, proposing the studio itself as a testbed. Originality/value The studio proposal is an original contribution to efforts to integrate AI with resilient urban regeneration – an effort likely to transform both. Its value is as a model, a prototype, for how to do this in a studio context, recognizing the way AI blurs the boundaries traditionally separating teaching from practice in the fields of architecture and urban design.