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Generative AI and Design Process for Hotels

By Lawrence Adams Principal, Lawrence Adams Architect | February 2024

Midjourney was used by Perkins Eastman Architects in generating conceptual images for a remote desert resort with 4 hotels that included luxury villas, a wellness center spa, and an amphitheater.

"The creative act does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, and skills." - Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, 1964

Generative AI technology is advancing so rapidly that, by the time it is published, this article may no longer be relevant. Generative AI is generally defined as algorithms that can create new content in the form of language, images, and sound by using transformer-based deep neural networks and based on the patterns and structure of input training data to generate new data with similar characteristics. In this article, we will be looking at the text-to-image model of generative AI which is a machine learning model where a text description in natural language is entered into an algorithm and produces images derived from enormous amounts of visual data from the internet.

While this article focuses on architecture and hotels, the discussion would apply to any creative process. Generative AI has the potential to be as impactful as CAD and BIM have been to the creation and production of architectural design. There are several generative AI programs in various stages of development, led by Midjourny, DALLE 3 (from ChatGPT), and Stable Diffusion, that can be applied on some level to the hotel design process.

To understand the utilization of generative AI for hotel design and how it can improve the design process, it is important to explore the creative process. How do architects arrive at design ideas? For many of us, it is an inherently personal journey that looks to the past and endeavors to envision the future. It usually requires crunching on the myriad of programmatic parameters, environmental factors, client preferences, and the financial and regulatory limits of a predetermined brief. For productive output, we avail ourselves of the hard-won skills, technology, and tools we find fundamental to our quest. If we start with the premise that AI can have a meaningful role in hotel design, how can we make it a valuable tool in the creative process?

^{The image was created in Midjourney using the prompt "Rustic house in rural Connecticut, green forest, wood framed, expansive glass, sunny day, steampunk style, warm interiors, dramatic lighting, greenhouse alcove, shadows, 2 levels, photorealistic, --ar 2:1"}

Existential Crisis

When I first used the text-to-image generative AI program Midjourney for design and seeing the amazing output I wondered, "Who in the world is designing this?! Certainly not me!" Questions of creative provenance came to mind. Yet something was titillating and exciting about seeing my words and thoughts translated into images that I would have never formally conceived on my own and certainly not at light speed. And yet there could be a use for these "unoriginal" creations that challenge and somehow inform my visioning process. Most images would automatically be rejected as silly, bizarre, inappropriate, or completely unbuildable, but others could lay the foundation for a design direction worth pursuing.

So, I kept going and selected an image, and through the process of variable manipulation, arrived at an idea that I could take and move forward with. But was it my idea? Do I at least get to claim some level of authorship for it? The answer is a qualified yes, but the process and skill I used to arrive at the idea is one that we must now master to legitimately and genuinely claim authorship. And it means tossing aside the notion that the result is not fundamentally original, or worse, is a sophisticated product of plagiarism.

The image was created in Midjourney using the prompt "Rustic house in rural Connecticut, green forest, wood framed, expansive glass, sunny day, steampunk style, warm interiors, dramatic lighting, greenhouse alcove, shadows, 2 levels, photorealistic, --ar 2:1"

Plagiarism

The charge of plagiarism in the use of AI for design might be unfair in many cases. Part of the design process certainly involves looking and thinking about existing creations and history. Whether one is inspired by the structure of a maple leaf, the latest Zaha Hadid masterpiece, or Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum, our stimulus toward creation is motivated, as Koestler explains, by what has been done before and not conjured from thin air. So too AI algorithms mine the collective memory for that inspiration and produce images inspired by past creative accomplishments but do so by accessing vast amounts of visual data at warp speed. So, is it really plagiarism to take inspiration from that soupy concoction of creative genius that exists in media and internet data that generative AI munches on and spits out with alacrity?

Subtlety and Nuance

What makes a work of art identifiable and attributable to a particular artist or architect? One can almost always recognize the work of Frank Lloyd Wright or a Picasso painting. So, if we assume that we possess an individual vision for architecture that is unique to ourselves, how do we maintain, nourish, and express that without being polluted by the noise on the internet?

The work of some artists and architects is easily identifiable if limited to a particular period of their work. Picasso had his Blue Period; Frank Lloyd Wright had his Prairie Style Period which was significantly different from his later works such as the Guggenheim and the Marin County Civic Center. Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid are instantly recognizable. However, some great architects, like Louis Kahn, are more difficult to identify since their body of work is so varied. For example, if one enters the prompt in Midjourney, as I have done, "in the style of Louis Kahn," the results are confused and unrecognizable as Kahn's style. But if one were to enter the prompt "in the style of Louis Kahn for The National Assembly Building in Dhaka," the results would show a much clearer influence.

Some thought leaders in the AI space have put forth the theory that generative AI is culturally biased and needs to be reined in to be made more egalitarian. They posit that the current creators of AI represent a limited demographic whose algorithmic coding results in biased output. In response to this implicit lack of diversity, Korean technology firms have started training AI models with sets of data that emphasize the Korean language and culture to counter the linguistic dominance of the English language. If such biases prove to be true, this would point to a characteristic of AI that could be useful for those seeking to instill in the program their unique influence that could be drawn from their distinct style as artists and architects. It would mean that AI can be tailored to a particular and personal set of preferences that can be instilled into an algorithm so that a claim of authorship and originality for the output begins to have relevance.

Much is being discussed about the personalization of AI with "AI Agents." The NY Times article, "Personalized A.I. Agents Are Here. Is the World Ready for Them?", 11/13/23, contends that AI chatbots can now be trained to use personalized data and respond with customizable results. The chatbots can be instructed to use only a user-defined subset of data to mold their responses, thereby allowing users to control output more accurately. "Users can edit its instructions, connect it to other apps or upload files they want it to use as reference material." It would follow that this process can apply to personal creative style, further enforcing the "authorship" of creative output from AI interfaces.

It is conceivable that a file can be created, that represents preferences and proclivities in architectural design that are unique and inherent to the creator. The file should contain the author's best works plus works the author seeks to emulate. It should contain other inspirational images, for example, the work of H.R. Geiger, or Steampunk style represents two of the aspirational styles I have used for certain applications. Other modifiers might include descriptors such as the golden ratio, the structure of a nautilus shell, or the musical forms of J.S. Bach. Data from that file would be given priority when accessed by the algorithm in coloring the solutions depicted. This could become an essential part of the iterative process and would potentially begin to dispel any notion of unoriginality or plagiarism.

Midjourney was used by Perkins Eastman Architects in generating conceptual images for a remote desert resort with 4 hotels that included luxury villas, a wellness center spa, and an amphitheater. Images were digitally refined, remixed, blended and graphically customized to arrive at a final presentation.

Practical Application

The state-of-the-art in applying AI to the design of hotels is primarily limited to the production of the concept design development stage. Its output, however dramatic, is typically limited to two-dimensional representations from a single vantage point. It leaves the designer with work to do to translate the depicted ideas and develop architectural form. Linking 3D design programs like SketchUp with generative AI will soon lead to conceptual directions for building massing and architectural character that can be further developed. Stable Diffusion has developed a process where text prompts coupled with freehand sketches and simple 3D models blended with other visual input can begin to generate viable 3D models. However, the computational capacity and enormous memory required for this process is beyond what is readily available for practical use with current technology. Expect this to change as computer science and cloud computing advance computational capacity in the near future making 3D model generation accessible and affordable.

Parafin.ai is a computational program that can be utilized, albeit for a limited number of select service hotel brands, to explore site-specific massing solutions, even rudimentary floor planning. Parafin's database is rich in detail derived from well-developed hotel brand standards and prototypes and so produces ideas that are in line with the hotel company's basic requirements and provides developers with an executable concept that is financially viable. Other computational programs such as TestFit, Delve and Forma, each expand on the ability to create site specific building form solutions and rudimentary floor plans based on input parameters not specific to particular hotel brand standards or prototypes. While very useful in early development planning, they do not yet have the ability to address the detailed fundamentals required for efficient hotel planning.

What is needed is a program that will utilize sound hotel planning parameters and fundamentals in the creation of floor plans for ALL types of hotels and resorts and for a multitude of site conditions. For instance, no program currently exists that would assist in the creation of plans, massing and site layout for a 100-key luxury boutique beachfront resort on a remote island location. However, there is reason to expect, as their capabilities continue to evolve, we will see programs that will generate detailed, functional, and efficient hotel planning for a wide variety of predefined hotel types. For example, templates can be established for a loading dock with quantifiable variables that help define its configuration, e.g., zoning mandates for the number and size of berths, site conditions, vehicle maneuvering, size of the hotel, local demands for delivery and trash removal, etc.

The same could be utilized for most back-of-house areas, based on their quantifiable and descriptive common functionality. When it comes to public spaces and guestrooms, a more creative, open design process is called for, so Midjourney, DALLE 3, Stable Diffusion, and others can provide multiple directions in helping to establish a design parti. But even with public spaces and guestrooms, the input prompts need to describe brand characteristics, aesthetic direction, size, daylighting opportunities, etc. For example, the Westin hotel brand wants designers to use biophilic concepts in developing an overall design aesthetic for its interiors so this nature-based quality should be inserted into the algorithm for the appropriate results.

^{Image Data Sets used to train algorithms in Generative AI are drawn from vast amounts of visual data from the internet that may then be reduced and controlled by carefully crafting verbal prompts through Prompt Engineering.}

New Skills

A new set of skills is required to manipulate variables to arrive at the most creative yet buildable solutions. During early design, individual elements of architecture can be explored if a skillful approach exploits the AI program's limits. Eventually we will use AI for all manner of design and practical problem solving. We will utilize AI to design a curtain wall, a brick pattern, or options for the crown of a high-rise building. AI tools may be used to design a porte cochere for a grand entrance experience to a luxury hotel or a dramatic rooftop dining venue. With this rapidly expanding, sophisticated technology comes the need for education, training, and practical adaptation to optimize its full potential.

Architect Stephen Perkins of HotelStudio uses the term Systematic Imagination to describe "an analytical process for defining specific elements that must be employed in creating data sets that include performative system elements for visualization, where human imagination is enhanced rather than subjugated to Generative AI technology." Perkins posits that Prompt Engineering is advancing as a new field of expertise whereby specialists in large language and visual prompt construction may craft input training data to AI algorithms with "the goal of producing synthesized, intended and fundamentally original results that successfully support the notion of genuine authorship."

Conclusion

In his book, The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman predicts that in the near future, as the magnitude of computational models grow, Generative AI will become more controllable for generating original and predictable outcomes. He asserts that with the great offering of science, tools and invention will continue to make us more capable as a species. Architects stand on the precipice of one of the most exhilarating transitions in the profession's history. Like other tools that have historically been mastered to exploit their full potential in propelling architectural practice into the future, AI must be informed, adapted, and shaped by individual oeuvres and rooted in sound design fundamentals.

Ultimately, architectural jobs will not be lost, only redefined, and streamlined to be more productive and creative. The only loss will be in the menial, repetitive, time-consuming, busy-work that, throughout the history of architectural practice, we have endeavored to reduce. The growth of Generative AI as a design tool promises to be a wild ride - one on which we must impose our psyche and bend to our individual will to exploit its creative bounty in producing architectural excellence. So, buckle up!!

"Insight depends on extracting relevant messages from irrelevant noise." - Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine 1967

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Any and all disputes or controversies of any kind, including but not limited to any performance, duty, obligation or liability arising under or related to this Agreement which are not first resolved informally, shall be determined by binding arbitration in San Francisco, California, in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association. The final award in any such arbitration proceeding shall be subject to entry as a judgment by any court or competent jurisdiction, provided that such judgment does not conflict with the terms and provisions hereof. The jurisdiction of the arbiter (or arbiters) with respect to legal matters shall be limited only by the statutory and common law of the State of California and the United States.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, any and all disputes, which the parties cannot informally resolve, regarding the scope of issues or matter with the jurisdiction of the arbitrator, shall be resolved by a separate dispute resolution process whereby HotelExecutive, in its sole discretion shall elect the dispute to be resolved by either (1) a court of competent jurisdiction in the State of California or (2) a panel of three new arbitrators.

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California notwithstanding any conflict of laws provisions. You and HotelExecutive agree that the venue for all legal disputes, controversies, actions of any kind arising under or related to this Agreement shall be San Francisco, California. You and HotelExecutive further agree that in case of any litigation regarding this Agreement, you irrevocably and unconditionally (i) consent to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in the County of San Francisco, California for any litigation or dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement, (ii) agree not to commence any litigation arising out of or relating to this Agreement except in the California Courts, (iii) agree not to plead or claim that such litigation brought therein has been brought in an inconvenient forum, and (iv) agree the California Courts represent the exclusive jurisdiction for all litigation relating to this Agreement.

11. MEMBERSHIP FEES

Hotel Business Review Subscriptions

If you choose to purchase a subscription, member subscription payments can be made in U.S. Dollars, as well as a variety of international currencies. Membership terms are Annual Recurring, and Monthly Recurring. The Annual Recurring subscription is an annual commitment and subscribers will be charged each consecutive billing cycle. Annual Recurring subscriptions can be cancelled after the first billing cycle and within 30-days of the billing date for a full refund. Monthly Recurring subscriptions are ongoing and subscribers will be charged each consecutive monthly billing cycle. Monthly Recurring subscriptions can be cancelled after the first month and within 7 days of the monthly billing cycle for a full refund.

12. PAYMENT AUTHORIZATION

Payment for the services provided to you in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive may be made by automatic credit card, debit card, direct debit, bankwire or Paypal and other approved payment means offered in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive, and you hereby authorize HotelExecutive and its agents to transact such payments on your behalf.

You hereby authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card to pay for your membership to HotelExecutive. You further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card for any and all purchases of products, services in association with HotelExecutive. You agree to be personally liable for all charges incurred by you in association with your access or other use of any content provided by HotelExecutive or any third party in association with HotelExecutive. You acknowledge and agree that your liability for all such charges shall continue after termination of your access or any type of membership arrangement with HotelExecutive.

In the event that you have chosen to have your membership automatically rebilled, unless and until you notify HotelExecutive that you wish to cancel or terminate your membership to HotelExecutive, you hereby agree and authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to automatically renew your membership to HotelExecutive on a continuing basis and to charge your credit card (or other payment means you have selected) to pay for the ongoing cost of your membership. You hereby further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card (or other approved payment means you have selected) for any and all purchases of products, services and entertainment provided to in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive.

13. PRIVACY POLICY

The following is the Privacy Policy for HotelExecutive

We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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