Katherine Perrott, School of Planning
Summary: Consider this assignment from PLAN 211 where students use AI to generate an image for a poster capturing their vision of a sustainable future campus. They gain an understanding of AI’s strengths and limitations within their discipline.
Students use DALL-E 2, an AI tool that generates an image based on written prompts, to design a poster capturing their vision of a sustainable future campus, displaying their work on a studio gallery wall. They gain an understanding of AI’s potential to support idea generation and rapid image production, while recognizing its limitations in providing critical perspectives, contextual knowledge, diverse representation, and nuanced design iteration.
Instructional goal: Students are provided with the opportunity to critically engage with and evaluate emerging AI tools. By engaging in this assignment, students gain an understanding of AI’s strengths and limitations in a design context.
Process:
- Students start with an initial prompt for DALL-E 2 to capture the components of a sustainable campus.
- They continue to prompt DALL-E 2 to make edits until the displayed image aligns with their vision.
- Students create posters with their images.
- Students discuss the strengths and limitations of the DALL-E 2 platform, taking a stance on the question: “Is AI the future of Urban Design?”
- The final product is a studio gallery wall showcasing unique visualizations of what a sustainable future campus could look like, providing insight into sustainability, future campus design, and the use of AI in this context.