Designing with AI? [Course Book]
︎Pedagogy
︎GenAI Literacy
︎Design Process/Workflows
Introducing topics of generative AI into the design curricula offers both opportunities as well as significant challenges. As a design educator, I seek cultivate critical AI literacy. I have been developing pedagogical exercises to equip students with the competencies to engage with generative AI technologies thoughtfully as such tools become increasingly widespread through society and industry.
My seminar “AI and Digital Fabrication” encouraged 14 undergraduate students to develop various experimental workflows of “making” in collaboration with AI. The course asked: When AI and digital information are taken outside of the computer screen and into the physical realm through fabrication tools and materials, how might material properties and tolerances interact with the designer and with AI? The structure for the seminar was twofold:
(1) through a semester-long fabrication project, pairs of students prototyped a workflow of co-design and co-fabrication
(2) Simultaneously, students analyzed their process as a written case study. They documented every step of the design process, every prompt they input into the AI tools, and noted down in what ways they observed, made use of, were surprised by, adapted to, or subverted the tendencies of the AI tools, material tolerances, and fabrication capabilities. Through this, they each contributed a book chapter in the book report, “Designing with AI?”.
The outcomes from the course were exhibited, published in the following book report, and analyzed as a case study in a peer-reviewed paper, “From AI-Aided Design to Physical Prototyping: Pedagogical Experiments for Fostering Critical AI Literacy” in the SIGRADI conference proceedings in 2024.
Year: 2024
Northeastern University: B.S. Arch, 14 Students
Course Type: Design Tactics & Operations (Undergrad elective)
Course: AI & Digital Fabrication
Role: Visiting Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern
My seminar “AI and Digital Fabrication” encouraged 14 undergraduate students to develop various experimental workflows of “making” in collaboration with AI. The course asked: When AI and digital information are taken outside of the computer screen and into the physical realm through fabrication tools and materials, how might material properties and tolerances interact with the designer and with AI? The structure for the seminar was twofold:
(1) through a semester-long fabrication project, pairs of students prototyped a workflow of co-design and co-fabrication
(2) Simultaneously, students analyzed their process as a written case study. They documented every step of the design process, every prompt they input into the AI tools, and noted down in what ways they observed, made use of, were surprised by, adapted to, or subverted the tendencies of the AI tools, material tolerances, and fabrication capabilities. Through this, they each contributed a book chapter in the book report, “Designing with AI?”.
The outcomes from the course were exhibited, published in the following book report, and analyzed as a case study in a peer-reviewed paper, “From AI-Aided Design to Physical Prototyping: Pedagogical Experiments for Fostering Critical AI Literacy” in the SIGRADI conference proceedings in 2024.
Year: 2024
Northeastern University: B.S. Arch, 14 Students
Course Type: Design Tactics & Operations (Undergrad elective)
Course: AI & Digital Fabrication
Role: Visiting Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern
Book:
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Exhibit:
Exhibit:
Peer-reviewed paper:
Song, H., Guida, G., “From AI-Aided Design to Physical Prototyping: Pedagogical Experiments for Fostering Critical AI Literacy”, Conference Proceedings of Ibero-American Society of Digital Graphics (SIGraDi), Barcelona, 2024.
Student examples
Group 1: Designing a chair without using the word “chair” // meaning of language
Group 2: Urban blocks // translations of language to form
Group 3: GPT as personalized tutor for learning scripting in grasshopper
Group 4: 3D scanned paper crumpling; mis-interpreted for 3D printing vs CNC milling
Phy-gital models / “uncanny sketching”
