What impacts will AI have on decoding the multiplicity of (spatial, political-economic, technological) dimensions that define the complex and multi-scalar character of the urban(ization) process? Can AI aid us in rethinking and critically amplifying the vocabulary of the urban, enabling us to move towards more nuanced and substantiated positions on relevant environmental and socio-spatial problematiques? What is the role and potential of AI in contemporary education, and how can it be harnessed to construct new forms of thinking, seeing, and representing the urban environment?
These were some of the questions that shaped the work showcased by the students of Theories of the Urban of the Master in City & Technology (MaCT), collecting innovative explorations of a constellation of urban concepts through a critical engagement with AI platforms, both textual and visual. Exploring key contemporary urban themes, from ‘resilience’ to ‘synthetic intelligence’, from ‘planetarity’ to ‘climate futures’, students constructed a collective glossary mobilizing a variety of visual formats, deployed and presented during the final review in the form of an interactive exhibition.
Photos © Pruethicheth Lert-udompruksa (Kla)
The work showcased was developed as part of the Theories of the Urban, a triptych-seminar spanning the full year in the MaCT. The seminar mobilizes the theory of planetary urbanization as a basis upon which to construct a critical agenda for the design disciplines (architecture, landscape, urbanism, planning) in the age of the Anthropocene.
Led by Mariano Gomez-Luque and Ana Gallego from the Urban Sciences Lab, the seminar aimed at guiding the students to an understanding of the relationship between cities, nature, and design as seen through the lens of recent discourses within the field of urban and environmental studies, as well as at stimulating critical thinking and the ability to develop original and substantiated positions on the issues discussed in the course.
About the Master in City and Technology
The Master in City & Technology is a on-campus programme oriented towards redefining the future of the urban, through innovative, evidence based and experimental approaches to understand, design and materialise cities. Taking place in Barcelona, the capital of urbanism, the Master is a platform to shape multidisciplinary leaders empowered to pioneer the transition of the urban environment in the era of big data, towards resilient & circular cities, inclusive & just communities and adaptive & more than human urban environments.
Apply to the Master in City and Technology today.
Photos by Pruethicheth Lert-udompruksa (Kla)
