AI-Empowered Architect: Connecting Creativity with Efficiency for Sustainable Structures Design

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Architectural structures are responsible for over 40% of global energy consumption and emissions, while also playing a crucial role in shaping human health and well-being. Integration of creative design with functionality and carbon efficiency is one of the greatest challenges in architecture today. To address this challenge, the team led by Professors Caitlin Mueller (MIT) and Gerard de Melo (HPI) is developing novel generative AI algorithms that link early-stage creative design exploration with high-fidelity engineering analysis and simulation.

Connecting widely used design modalities—such as images and text across varying levels of abstraction—to structural representations suitable for architectural and engineering simulation, this project aims to enable early environmental feedback and foster early-stage collaboration across disciplines. In doing so, the project advances the creation of low-carbon, high-quality architecture aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.