The Digital Observatory: Imaging Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Bokhari, Syed Muhammad Adil

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The Digital Observatory: Imaging Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Author / Producer

Bokhari, Syed Muhammad Adil person

Date

2025-12-03

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

ETH Bibliography

yes

Rights / License

In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted north_east

Abstract

The thesis presented here is disctinctly architectural in nature and aims to directly address questions and invent new ones related to architectural rendering and imaging through surveys, experiments, and applications. The dissertation is divided into five parts, envisioned as a traversal through a palace of stories. At each point in this traversal, new questions, objects, figures, experiments, and methods come into play and become conversational partners. It establishes three sensibilities that form the core of the thesis: The Wunderkammer, the Garden, and the Theatre; each one focusing, like a lens into a particular mode associated with the construction of the architectural image. Each part is composed of multiple essays that deal with each sensibility. As spatial metaphors they are all localities; particular locations in our palace, however they are always connected to the world at large, albeit in a different light. One through precious objects, one through ways of connecting things, and one through schematic performances. Together as a tripod of rendering, they are interwoven together in a contingent manner, cyclically involved in the creation of the architectural image. Each of these spatial metaphors also behave as vestibules to the others, with the experiments providing points of inversion where two sensibilities meet. The Wunderkammer opens and leads, the garden talks and flows, the theatre hosts and returns. Each opens into the others, each talks to the others, each hosts the others. Part 1: Enter through the Looking Glass is an invitation. It lays out the theoretical basis for the dissertation. This invitation works as an expansion breadthwise of the idea of the architectural rendering by bringing in discussions from computer graphics and vision, optics, photography, and artificial intelligence to unfold the idea of architectural media into modalities of thought. It examines computational methods and examines the many histories and cultures that shape the matter of the thesis. The experiment: “Tomographies” culminates this section. From this world, we enter the first location inside the palace: Wunderkammer. Part 2: Toward the Wunderkammer is an intimation; the first point of entry into our palace. It discusses the act of surveying, collecting, and sensing the many objects, characters, and instruments that we cherish and work with; It is a microcosm. It delves into the cabinets and their contents; acts of building databases, collecting, archiving, storing, surveying. It houses the models of the world. It culminates with the two experiments: “3D Archaeology”, and “Architectonic Embeddings”. The Wunderkammer, a private space, works as a vestibule through which we enter the garden. Part 3: Across the Garden is a procession; through the flourishing grounds of the palace. Here, all the elements collected in the wunderkammer come to life and talk to each other while being immersed in the changing of the weather; a search engine. The weathers here connect, mobilize connections. This is the world of models. Connections are forged and conversations are rehearsed as we move onto the theatre. This is the space of the familiar, of mimics, and simulations, where streams of information organize and compose the artefacts that we collected and are imbued with life. The section ends with the application: “Sjstr” which connects the modeling space of CAD software to the realm of indexes and precedents. This Garden is a familiar space through which we move to the theater. Part 4: Into the Theatre is a performance; A play with and through the many connected objects, connections, and instruments that we have carried with us; a rendering machine. Now we direct our attention to the deployment of the architectural project on multiple scales. It is public. This is the life of models. Through the idea of the theatre three architectural projects are deployed as a scehma. Its delves into the relationships and continuities of theatricality and architecture and builds experiments that not just think about the theatre as space but the theatrical device of the rendering and the theatre of the archirtectural project. This section is rendered through 3 key experiments: “Automata at Court”, “LLMs in the City” and “1001 in 1” that deploy foundation models in the service of the theatre of an architectural project, each delving into multiple scales along with their histories of architectural projects. Part 5: Exit through the Bazaar is a circulation. The stepping out into the marketplace, where models, thoughts, figures, truths, and fabulations are traded as currencies. This is the final act, where we return to the city and look at it anew.

Permanent link

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/796714.1

Publication status

accepted

External links

Check availability in ETH Library @ swisscovery

Contributors

Examiner : Hovestadt, Ludger

Subject

Architecture; Artificial Intelligence; Rendering; Painting; Optics; Graphics