
In the past, AI-generated images often resembled psychedelic experiences—filled with strange, sometimes unsettling colors and forms. But recent advancements in artificial intelligence have transformed that landscape. Today, we are surrounded by images whose origins are often unknown. From playful mashups to portraits turned into works of art, it's undeniable that Artificial Inteligence has become a lasting part in our visual landscape. As Yuval Noah Harari noted in a 2023 interview with The Economist, "AI has gained some remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language — whether through words, sounds, or images. It has, in effect, hacked the operating system of our civilization."
Architecture, naturally, has not been immune to this. Prompt-based image generators have flooded the virtual environment with renderings that span from surreal to hyper-realistic: futuristic cities, organic skyscrapers, and utopian cabins perched on idyllic cliffs. Most of these are created with general-purpose tools that prioritize visual novelty over design logic. But not all platforms follow this path. Gendo, for instance, was built specifically for architects and designers — offering finer control over parameters like scale, material, and spatial intent. Its goal isn't just to generate images, but to support design thinking. Still, these more intentional tools remain exceptions in a broader sea of generic, decontextualized imagery.
What we're witnessing is the rise of what many are now calling AI Slop—a term as recent as the widespread proliferation of generative generic AI itself. It refers to low-quality, mass-produced content created by AI, designed primarily for virality. These images — often visually striking at first glance — circulate widely through social media, stripped of context, place, or any meaningful architectural reflection. In many ways, this digital landscape echoes what Rem Koolhaas once described as Junkspace: incoherent, placeless environments spawned by the excesses of late capitalism—shopping malls, airports, atriums. The difference now is that these environments no longer occupy physical space. Instead, they are hyper-rendered, hyper-polished images—visually refined but ultimately hollow, lacking program, materiality, or any tangible grounding. In this sense, the virtual environment becomes a non-place, in the words of Marc Augé— a space without identity, devoid of history, and disconnected from meaningful relationships. The opposite of an anthropological place — one built through cultural references, emotional memories, and social ties.

The core issue lies in how most generative tools are trained: they prioritize visual novelty over design integrity. They reward speed and spectacle but sacrifice precision, context, and meaning. The result is a flood of images that look like architecture but lack its essential foundations: contextual thinking, spatial intelligence, material awareness, and authorship. This crisis of substance recalls Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's critique in Learning from Las Vegas, where they introduced the concept of the "decorated shed" — a simple, generic structure, functionally indifferent, whose identity relies solely on graphics or decorative elements applied to the façade. In this model, architecture is reduced to a visual facade, losing its intrinsic expressive potential.
At the heart of this debate is a deeper cultural concern: the erosion of sense of place and specificity — values that have traditionally defined what we recognize as good architecture. In his essay on Critical Regionalism, Kenneth Frampton argues for architecture rooted in local culture, climate, and regional building knowledge as a form of resistance to the homogenizing forces of globalization. For Frampton, building with contextual awareness is both a political and cultural act. Similarly, Manuel Castells, in The Information Age, analyzes how the logic of the global economy tends to produce "disembedded" spaces — environments that no longer respond to local needs, traditions, or identities. These so-called "generic cities" are standardized and interchangeable places, disconnected from both place and people.


When we observe the proliferation of AI-generated architectural imagery, we see an intensification of a phenomenon already known and explored by theorists. Not only are physical spaces becoming undifferentiated, but their visual representations are also losing any connection to identity, culture, or place. They adopt a neutral, globalized aesthetic, free from contextual friction — resulting in an architecture that could come from anywhere, and therefore, from nowhere. Visually captivating, yet conceptually volatile. Easily consumed, quickly forgotten.
AI as Partner (Not Substitute) in Design
Yet artificial intelligence is not inherently at odds with good design. When used with intention, it can become a powerful ally—expanding, supporting architectural thinking, and enriching the creative process. Gendo is one such platform, tailored to architectural workflows and designed to give architects meaningful control over their creative process. It allows users to define scale, materiality, and spatial logic while rapidly visualizing design concepts. It offers four core tools: Render, for generating spatially coherent images; Style, for shaping visual language and aesthetic direction; Material, for testing textures and finishes; and Describe, which translates natural language into precise architectural prompts. These features integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, enabling professionals to sketch, iterate, and evolve their ideas with greater speed, clarity, and fidelity.

By maintaining the architect's authorship and intent, platforms like this position AI not as a replacement, but as an intelligent co-designer, enhancing precision, insight, and innovation, making AI as a collaborator, not a substitute. The conscious use of these tools can strengthen spatial logic, refine architectural storytelling and enhance the authorship of each project, aligning emerging technologies with the core values of architecture: culture, materiality, territory, and authorship.
A compelling example comes from another discipline: the board game Go. In 2016, the AI AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol using strategies once considered mistakes —moves that challenged human patterns and revealed new dimensions of the game. In the years that followed, something remarkable happened: Go wasn't diminished by AI; it evolved. Professionals and amateurs alike began studying from AlphaGo's techniques, and the overall level of gameplay rose. AI didn't replace human skill — it expanded it, pushing the boundaries of what was possible.
This journey offers an optimistic analogy for architecture. Like in Go, artificial intelligence can challenge architects to think more rigorously, design more intentionally, and explore new approaches. The goal is not to replicate machine-generated outputs, but to confront them, refine them, and produce with greater awareness.

In the end, architecture is about much more than an impactful image or final product. It's about the thinking behind the image — a slow process, between idea and execution, between place and form. We are not sure what the future holds for AI in architecture, but we do know this: the essence of the discipline lies in that careful interval of elaboration. And it's precisely that time, rooted in intention, reflection, and context, that makes architecture what it is: a situated, cultural, and meaningful practice.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: What Is Future Intelligence?, proudly presented by Gendo, an AI co-pilot for Architects.
Our mission at Gendo is to help architects produce concept images 100X faster by focusing on the core of the design process. We have built a cutting edge AI tool in collaboration with architects from some of the most renowned firms such as Zaha Hadid, KPF and David Chipperfield.
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