Automated Spatial Configurations

This chapter illustrates the extent to which software influence the generation of public spaces. In particular, I discuss a number of projects where machine learning techniques and AI-driven methods in general are used to automatically generate buildings, from houses to care home facilities. These examples are used to emphasise the mechanisms through which designers and programmers generate software that eventually determine the ways in which people use physical spaces. Through three projects, this chapter discuss how the elaboration of a set of a-priori design criteria (or objectives) results in the automatic generation of public spaces, common areas and social places where people meet, interact and conduct their public life.