Title: Neural Architecture - Design and Artificial Intelligence Speaker: Dr Matias del Campo Host: Professor Wassim Jabi Event: Computational Methods in Architecture Lecture Series Venue: Welsh School of Architecture - Cardiff University Description: Neural architecture is the field of architecture that is primarily preoccupied with interrogating the emergent field of artificial neural networks (ANNs) as a design method. This lecture presents an attempt to utilize Deep Learning (DL) and Machine Learning (ML) to capture the salient features of existing architecture in order to interrogate these data for their underlying architectural qualities. What is meant by underlying architectural qualities? The rational explanation would include aspects such as spatial layout, sectional distribution of volumes, the dialog with its environment, the volumetric balance, the material qualities of the design, the structural properties, etc. All of which can be explored with the help of ML processes. However, this lecture maintains that architecture is more than just an assemblage of rational properties. This might explain the obsession with neural art, which represents an excellent mirror of our contemporary age, particularly regarding our shared agency with quasi-intelligent machines and their observation of the world. Can architecture do the same? Can neural networks help interrogate the latent layers within the geological deposits of the history of architecture and then assemble those found features into hitherto unseen designs?