Antoine Picon is Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design and one of the field's most rigorous thinkers on the relationship between technology, urbanism, and human experience. In this conversation, he reframes the questions everyone asks about AI and architecture. Rather than debating whether machines will replace designers, Picon asks what AI reveals about what it means to be human. What separates embodied intelligence from computational thinking? Is creativity actually the defining human quality, or is it something else entirely? He discusses architectural intention, the difference between buildings and buildings marked by human purpose, and why the real challenge of smart cities isn't technical capability but clarity about what we actually want. This conversation examines whether machines can understand what makes a place livable, and why answering that question requires understanding ourselves first.

Top Insights

• AI will shift architecture from creating forms to curating options.
• Smart cities introduce both efficiency and new urban fragilities.
• Digital perception reshapes how we experience materiality and scale.
• Ornament remains essential: it connects sensory experience with meaning.
• The biggest challenge ahead is reconciling digital innovation with planetary limits.
• Education is entering a 'cyborg phase' where human-machine authorship merges.
• Cities must redefine their relationship between the artificial and the natural.