AI4ARCHI – AI for architectural and urban generative design


Prof Benjamin LECOUTEUX,
benjamin.lecouteux@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Website


Prof Philippe MARIN,
philippe.marin@grenoble.archi.fr 

Website


DESCRIPTION

The construction and architectural sectors are having difficulty to embrace digital transformation, supervisory bodies have identified the need to support the transformation of the sector, by encouraging the emergence of new knowledge and technical skills. Sector accounts for 30% of the european environmental footprint, making it the main contributors. It is essential to take greater account of environmental issues, right from the initial design phases.

AI plays a key role in these issues. In this context, the objectives of the project are twofold:

Contribute to the “capability” of designers, and meet the training challenges facing the schools of architecture and professionals;

Contribute to the design of a more environmentally-friendly built environment, by leveraging the qualities of AI systems. 

Three main scientific challenges have been identified:

In terms of architectural sciences: Reframing the computational co-creativity, considering the effects and place of language in the process of designing, integrating environmental performance, right from the initial design phases.

In terms of computer sciences: Adapt language models (LLMs) to architecture-specific tasks by hybridizing them with domain-specific data and appropriately evaluate their performances and ethical issues.

In terms of engineering sciences: Optimizing solar productions and solar morphologies is a complex task, involving a multi-criteria optimization problem that considers heterogeneous parameters such as PV production, use, structure, comfort, energy, solar potential and local climat. AI facilitates these activities and speed up simulation processes.

ACTIVITIES

The chair is organized around three packs:

The research pack is structured around two axes:

Computational Co-Creativity (CCC) : AI and creativity: How LLM can support humans in design (impacts and modalities of language interactions for representation productions).
Data Driven Design (DDD) : AI simulation and optimization: How predict the shape based on performance requirement, integrate environmental parameters into generative design processes.

The training pack has three components:

  • Initial training: Production of digital resources for students in architecture, engineering and communication fields
  • Training of trainers: Production of digital resources for professors and lecturers from the French schools of architecture
  • Specialized training: Organize a new Master 2 degree in generative design, collaboration between UGA et ENSAG.

The innovation pack consider 4 main activities:

  • Applied and hosted researches: Scientific collaboration and CIFRE PhD.
  • Sharing and experimentation workshops: Share practices, real-life case studies and/or take part in tools evaluation.
  • Awareness open cycles: Promote and raise awareness of the sector.
  • Exploratory workshops: Organization of open innovation projects to encourage and uncap future research development and innovation partnership.
 

SELECTED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

  • A.Pupier, M. Coavoux, J. Goulian, and B. Lecouteux, “Growing Trees on Sounds : AssessingStrategies for End-to-End Dependency Parsing of Speech,” in ACL 2024 (L.-W. Ku, A. Martins, andV. Srikumar, eds.), vol. 2, (Bangkok, Thailand), pp. 225–233, Aug. 2024.
  • L.Ormaechea-Grijalba, N. Tsourakis, D. Schwab, P. Bouillon, and B. Lecouteux, “Towards high-qualityLLM-based data for French spontaneous speech simplification : an exo-refinement approach,” in Interspeech,(Rotterdam (NL), Netherlands), 2025
  • C.Macaire, C. Dion, D. Schwab, B. Lecouteux, and E. Esperança-Rodier, “Towards Speech-to-Pictograms Translation,” in Interspeech 2024, (Kos / Greece, Greece), pp. 857–861, ISCA, Sept. 2024.
  • P. Marin, « La matérialité des connaissances dans le contexte de l’intelligence artificielle et de la créativité computationnelle », Culture & Recherche, vol. n°148, p. pages 47-59, juin 2025, doi: https://hal.science/hal-05117537v1.
  • P. Marin, « La médiation technologique à l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle », SHS Web Conf., vol. 203, p. 01001, 2024, doi: 10.1051/shsconf/202420301001.
  • P. Marin et L. Lescop, « How IA challenges architectural design », in Envisioning Architectural Scales in the Analogue and Virtual Representation of Architecture, Royal Danish Academy - Institute of Architecture and Design - Copenhagen, août 2023, p. 10. doi: 10.60558/eaea16-2023-311.

CHAIR PRESENTATION

Chair Presentation AI4ARCHI

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Published on  August 22, 2025
Updated on August 22, 2025