When Alpha Go beats the best human Go player; when an amateur driver can confidently drive to a strange place with Google Map; when YouTube gives you a series of recommendations after you watch several videos, etc. No matter you embrace or hate this technology, AI is everywhere in your life. My observation of these facts become the entry point for my architectural thesis.

Then I move to broader timeline research to see how previous architects responded to their pioneering technology and then how the new aesthetics in architecture led to a new round of social reaction; I also found associated Science Fiction movies/literature for my reference to widening the width of the topic. I found that people attitude to technology is either positive or negative. For example, responding to 1920s industrialization, the Frankfurt kitchen marked a milestone in domestic architecture and led to a convenient modern lifestyle/ however, in the French movie, My Uncle, the post-modern architecture with advanced automation control became a source of the joke. Similarly, AI, as what we think to make our life better now, is an evil existence in those dystopian Sci-fi movies. For example, Matrix described a future where people are unaware that they are “imprisoned” by AI in a virtual world; in Westworld, robots with AI core gain self-awareness and betrayed their “fidelity” setting, the priority principle in their programming. In these examples, technology has the power to generate complex values and moral debates. This is also true in the architecture-related subjects.

Central Park, as Olmsted’s design to create an artificial landscape, brought collaborative interdisciplinary technology to meet complex requirements such as irrigation, rainfall management, human activity, and ecological issue, etc. However, for New York’s residents, this is conceptually a natural green land as birds and other small animals inhabit here. Times Square is famous for its stacking of screens and billboards, celebrating an international-style commercial cityscape; but we can also perceive these technologies as low-tech, compared to smart AI and there are also hidden habitats behind the billboard or in the sewer. If we carefully differentiate the nuance of these, the boundary between artificial and natural is vague. And technology is the cause to accelerate this recognition.

I believe architecture and design can raise our awareness of just how artificial or natural our environments truly are. I intend to design for two sites (Times Square & Central Park) as a pair of comparisons to draw attention to our misperceptions. The design will be on an experiential/architectural scale, which welcomes people to come close and interact. The material, color, and form will be innovative, to respond to the new aesthetic brought by new technological development. For the format, it consists of a series of “follies” to represent the various levels of artificial/natural identity to respond to the different technology-human/nature relationship. Considering people nowadays preference on “soft education” rather than purely academic format, the tone of this experiential space will be entertaining, while reflective and provocative.