From drawing and photography to mapping, scanning and generative AI, technologies have always shaped how we see, move through and design space. This seminar places today’s tools within a longer history of instruments that extend human abilities. It asks what these tools make visible, what they hide, and what kinds of places they create. Lectures, readings, hands-on experiments and London site visits take students from the Royal Institution and the V&A to immersive venues and the Wellcome Collection. Students record their own attention, then design, build and test an instrument that changes how a space is perceived. The course ends with an architectural proposal on what should, and should not, be automated, and on what architects owe the public as machines take over more of perception and design.
The course is designed for architecture students but is open to anyone working in design or technology (pending availability after Architecture students have been seated). No prerequisites or software skills are assumed.
Department: Architecture
Location: London
Semesters: Fall, Spring
Credits: 3