Will AI Ruin Architecture? | Conversation with Marco Livorno

Architecture and Design in India By Petros

In this episode of The Design Dialogues, host Rishabh Jain interviews architectural visualization expert Marco Livorno about navigating the rapidly evolving

Key takeaways

• Marco Livorno stresses that architectural visualization requires deep research and cross-disciplinary inspiration from fields like cinematography, gaming, and car design to build authentic narratives.
• Livorno advises young architects to treat AI as a learning and testing companion for brainstorming scenarios, but warns against delivering raw AI outputs without foundational knowledge.

Main topics

• AI in architectural visualization
• Storytelling and narrative design

Notable quotes

"But if you don't have these fundamentals, if you don't have this kind of learning experience or past, then you cannot understand how to improve it."

Conclusion

The episode delivers actionable advice for emerging visualization artists: prioritize

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) But if you don't have these fundamentals, if you don't have this kind of learning experience or past, then you cannot understand how to improve it. Speaker 1 (0:12) One, two. Speaker 2 (0:16) So, Marto, how are you? Speaker 1 (0:19) Hello, I'm good, I'm good. How are you? Everything good? I'm great. Speaker 2 (0:22) I was so impressed to see some of your work when I was going through your profile. And, you know, me coming from a video game design kind of background, it was very astonishing for me, you know, to come back to the, you know, visualization industry and see after 10 years, you know, how much it has. exploded and you know how well you have captured especially the storytelling part of visualization which people don't really you know focus on you know they try to move towards realism but storytelling is such an important aspect and to see that in your work was very uh it was very refreshing for me so for our audience if you can share some of your insights and key aspects of your workflow on how you maintain storytelling throughout your visualizations. Speaker 1 (1:15) It Speaker 2 (1:16) would be great to hear. Speaker 1 (1:17) So basically what I always try to push, indeed as you said, is the narration, especially my personal works. I believe that an image is not just an image or a video or whichever kind of presentation you want to deal with, let's say. It needs to speak about the project, needs to speak about the environment, needs to speak through many different factors which are present in our world, let's say from the lighting to the shape of the nature that surrounds the architecture. And this is, let's say, valid for every kind of art, right? Like you never make architecture just standing in void. otherwise will be called sculpture. And even sculpture sometimes, of course, they relate to the world, but architecture especially is always in the middle of a context, which is where it's natural or is in a city setting. So even if you don't want to, let's say, even if you wanted to omit this kind of relationship, it exists. Therefore, architecture always finds itself into speaking with the surrounding. And it's your job and your also, let's say, challenge to get use of all these elements that are present already, let's say, to build a dialogue and to make the best of it and to enhance, let's say, what you have in your hands. Speaker 2 (2:53) Yeah, absolutely. Speaker 1 (2:54) This Speaker 2 (2:54) is very Speaker 1 (2:55) important, I think. Speaker 2 (2:57) Yeah, especially and especially from you. So I have seen some of your work. It has been like across a lot of different domains, you know, from automotive to I see some of your work with like the public library. And then I see some of the really architectural marvels. So it is a testament to the fact that, you know, the storytelling aspect is. Would you say it's more of like a skill or does it just come naturally to you? No, Speaker 1 (3:27) it doesn't come naturally. It's always a research. I wish it was natural and easy all the time. No, no. It helps to study. Of course, it helps having a certain type of... let's say, a study behind, like along the years, of course, as you were saying, like you come from the video game industry, so you have a certain type of fundamentals, which are very important, which they translate somehow into rendering, let's say, the rendering field. But the rendering field also comes with a certain, let's say, attached to the architectural field. Like, for example, gaming could be attached somehow to cinematography and to all that kind of user experience. Architecture, as you know, is very broad. It's even difficult to just define it in just one word. It's not just aesthetic. It's not just people using an architecture. It's not just a relationship with the surroundings. It's many. many things coming together. So when it comes to, let's say, representing, yes, you have to be careful. And moreover, there are different aspects. Let's say, if it's an architecture or a project for a client, if it's an architecture for a competition, also that kind of language changes a lot. If you need to be very detail-oriented or you can be conceptual, you can take a bit of freedom, you know. that's also something to take care of. Speaker 2 (5:09) Yeah. That reminds me of competitive visualizing. I didn't know that was something, you know, there is something like that. If you can share more on what it entails when it comes to competitions of visualizing. Speaker 1 (5:25) Sure. So basically, competitions for architecture, it's a section of the field which entails Speaker 1 (5:40) proposing an architecture, which could be at different stages, but let's say at conceptual stage, you propose architecture that needs to challenge with other studios. And in order to be picked, you need to represent it, let's say, in the best way possible. This is the simple way. And behind that, there is a lot. which is not just about rendering but is also of course about concepting, is about plans, of course functionality, is about representing correctly a brief and so on. Talking just about the image, we can talk about a bit more emotional architecture or emotional kind of image or an image that needs to deliver all the key points of this architecture. Normally, this kind of competition stage is way more, let's say, expressive. It needs to convince the client or the organization that organizes the competition. Therefore, you need to be very attentive in delivering these points, especially, for example, in an image which is very visual. Normally, when we do or when we did in the past with other studios architectural competitions, normally the image is quite big, like takes quite a big space in the boards, in the competition boards, because it's the first thing that it comes to your eye, like it kind of like you should have an idea of all the project just by looking at an image. Of course, then you have multiple images. So perhaps you an aerial view. tells about the relationship with the city with the surrounding with the nature, then you're going to, I don't know, dusk or sunset view. So you explain something else about the architecture, which is to be the reflection of the glass or the mood, or specific type of the day where the architecture behaves in a certain way. So let's say every image in a competition architecture needs to tell a story. this is also what they've been teaching, what I've been learning, that you need to use composition, light, and so on to tell a story. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:09) so apart from just delivering what the point of architecture is, it's also important to create an emotion. And I think emotion and story