Viral image generator DALL•E mini produces amusing, sometimes nightmarish architecture content
Social media is abuzz with screengrabs from Dall•E mini, an online platform from Hugging Face that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to collage together images based on keywords and phrases input by its users. The developer behind the project is Boris Dayma, who has programmed and trained the model to peruse millions of online images and their corresponding captions. Dall•E pulls from its memory database of visuals and is designed to amalgamate several concepts at once into nine visually compelling—and more often than not, bizarre—images. Architects and architecture aficionados, alike, including architecture meme-king Dank Lloyd Wright, have tried their hand at the generator, which produces distorted scenes with discernible visual qualities.
The image generator collages concepts together but is also being taught to produce content in specified styles, including as illustrations in the style of specific artists and imagery from CCTV footage. A Bias and Limitations note on the webpage acknowledges, the model may “reinforce or exacerbate societal biases” as it pulls its data from online sources.
Here is a roundup of some of the most laughable results with architecture themes found online by AN’s editors, as well as a few we generated ourselves:
📢 Serpentine Pavilion 2023 unveiled! pic.twitter.com/Y3zt8prMQv
— Olly Wainwright (@ollywainwright) June 8, 2022
Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright was curious about next year’s Serpentine Pavilion design so DALL•E gave him some hints; the design appears to be a combination of past pavilion designs by the likes of Frida Escobedo, Bjarke Ingels, and Smiljan Radic.
— La_Masa (@la_masa) June 15, 2022
London-based artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman asked the AI who the next Pritzker Prize winner will be, it looks like the jury is still undecided. Meanwhile, Twitter user La_Masa wanted to know what would happen if a dinosaur met Le Corbusier.
Amy Sedaris-beloved Instagram meme account everyverything (aka AN contributor Shane Reiner-Roth) shared the results from a search “vin diesel enjoying postmodern architecture.” The actor appears to be a big fan.
Instagram account Dank Lloyd Wright has posted many generated results, asking the bot to speculate what a wedding dress designed by Zaha Hadid might look like. Another account ytheory (aka Douglas Spencer) shared images of the Dank Lloyd Wright account, which produced warped cartoon and black and white versions of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The editors at AN also asked DALL•E a couple of queries, including a portrait of ourselves, what our own personal metaverse might look like (pictured at the top of the page), and for depictions of unrealized sustainable building designs. It appears that the buildings of our future will take on unusual shapes and be covered in plants.
