Artificial Intelligence and Design
William Glockner, MLA, ASLA
Written by William Glockner, MLA, ASLA, Junior Associate
While many wonder if the future of design will be entirely dominated by machines, few acknowledge that even now, it is no longer created solely by humans. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping the design and creative industry. The time AI saves and the novel design solutions it generates will empower those who embrace the technology to become the next generation of leading designers and firms. The question on everyone’s mind is:
What can AI do for me and my firm?
This article showcases how design firms integrating artificial intelligence are improving their visualizations, ideation process, concept development, design execution, plant selections, and firm communication. These advantages compound to increase leading firms’ efficiency, creativity, and client satisfaction.
Accelerate Your Visualization and Ideation Process
AI is helping leading firms present design ideas to clients faster and at a significantly lower cost. AI can generate mood boards, precedent images, and conceptual renderings in minutes. Consider a designer with the following idea:
A visualization of the proposed fence design, bringing the described concept to life.
“A Corten fence with rectangular panels and a rectangular frame, featuring laser-cut cacti attached with stand-off anchors, creating a slight gap between the panel and the cacti.”
Finding a reference image for this design would require extensive internet searches or 3D modeling. By contrast, the designer can enter the prompt into an AI program such as MidJourney and receive a reasonable approximation in under a minute. By reducing the time spent searching for reference images—especially for novel design ideas—AI streamlines visualization process.
Beyond accelerating visualization, AI can expand the number of design ideas explored for a project. By generating four variations of any requested design idea, it enables designers to evaluate different iterations quickly. Adjusting AI’s Chaos parameter allows designers to control the level of variation—lower values produce similar images, while higher values yield radically different concepts. This flexibility encourages broader exploration and can lead to more compelling designs.
Break Creative Ruts and Encourage Design Innovation
AI can help designers and firms break out of creative ruts and challenge their biases. Many assume that because the intelligence is trained on existing work, it lacks the spark for true innovation. However, AI’s ability to disregard convention can lead to groundbreaking ideas.
Human designers are influenced by their training and preferences and often stick to what they know works. They may hesitate to invest time in an idea that seems silly to them. AI, on the other hand, has no preconceived notions of what ‘looks good’ or ‘looks bad’—it simply generates what it is asked for. This enables designers to explore ideas they might otherwise dismiss or, subconsciously, struggle to model out in good faith.
AI is particularly effective at merging disparate design concepts into unexpectedly compelling hybrids. For example, blending Spanish hacienda with high Gothic architecture would be a complex challenge for most designers. However, AI is more than happy to dive straight into a challenge like this to satisfy the prompt. While not every result will kick off a design revolution, even flawed iterations can inspire new creative directions.
AI’s take on blending Spanish and Gothic styles, resulting in a striking and well-balanced composition.
Artificial Intelligence’s ability to push boundaries also helps designers present clients with fleshed out visualizations of avant-garde ideas. Clients often hesitate to approve untested ideas without visual references, but intelligence-generated images can provide compelling previews. A designer envisioning a giant snake sculpture winding through a courtyard, adorned with culturally relevant art, might struggle to convey the idea through words alone. Intelligence-generated visuals, however, make bold proposals more tangible, increasing the likelihood of client buy-in.
While AI offers powerful visualization tools, it comes with challenges. Intelligence-generated imagery can be misleading or unrealistic. For instance, it may depict impractical jointing between pavers or impossible material combinations, creating the illusion of a feasible design where none exists.
This underscores the continued importance of industry knowledge and experienced designers. Experienced designers can evaluate intelligence-generated concepts for feasibility and refinement, ensuring that stunning visuals translate into realistic, buildable solutions. Less experienced designers may struggle to distinguish between an exciting image and a constructible design, leading to impractical proposals and dissatisfied clients. Thus, AI does not replace expertise—it amplifies the value of skilled designers who can discern viable ideas from aesthetic illusions.
Dynamically Theme Your Plant Selection and Quickly Source Alternatives
Beyond visualization, AI assists with plant selection by generating climate-appropriate plant lists based on project constraints. By inputting parameters such as Water Use Classification of Landscape Species (WUCOLS) ratings, Sunset Zones, height, and flower color, designers can quickly generate tailored plant lists. While online plant databases provide similar functionality, AI offers additional advantages. It can consider abstract factors like regional availability, reputation, and even subjective characteristics such as "Japanese-inspired" or "feels like an underwater plant."
Or, if you desperately need a silver ground cover with purple flowers that feels fluffy and looks great next to Palo Verdes and can grow in full sun conditions in San Antonio, Texas, just type your desired criteria into an AI tool and be astounded when you discover the perfect plant for you: Dalea greggii.
AI can also help solve sourcing issues. If a specified plant becomes unavailable, designers can input its characteristics and receive alternatives with similar aesthetics and functionality. Leading firms can also leverage this capability to integrate more native plants into their designs by asking AI to suggest native replacements for specified non-native selections.
It is important to note that AI can make mistakes and hallucinations with plants so the oversight of an experienced designer is essential to understand and validate the plant suggestions. Although AI tools are remarkable at building quick plant lists, these lists will still require supervision, understanding, and sign-off from an experienced human designer.
An intelligence-generated list of large-leaved plants—note that some suggestions may not be context-appropriate, highlighting the designer’s role in refining AI input.
AI in Code Compliance and Communication
AI can be a useful tool for navigating design guidelines and regulations, helping designers quickly scan government codes and spec sheets to identify relevant sections. However, this is only a first step—it highlights where to look and is absolutely not a substitute for reading the full text. While AI can speed up the process of locating the right statutes and rules, responsibility for understanding and applying them remains with the designer. Code compliance cannot be outsourced, and professional judgment is essential. When questions arise, the correct course of action is to communicate directly with the appropriate government officials.
AI tools can support the communication process by enhancing clarity in coordination with city officials, other design consultants, and clients. Effective communication is critical for ensuring that design concepts are accurately conveyed, and project updates or tasks are clear. AI can help refine talking points, improve logical organization, and enhance clarity in written correspondences, increasing professionalism. AI tools can also help organize ideas and format an email correspondence so that key feedback is not missed. AI can also check your tone and revise your words, if you’re communicating about a sensitive subject, it can help revise your tone to be more formal or less stern and even offer insights on how your email may be interpreted by the recipient!
With these benefits, there is an essential point to keep in mind: be careful with what you share with AI platforms. Leading firms understand that client confidentiality must be maintained—AI platforms already warn against sharing sensitive information, and they do this for good reason. Once entered into an AI system, the data is no longer just yours. Any data you feed into any AI tool can be used for training future models or be exposed in an unfortunate data breach. If you have client information that you wouldn’t want the public to know, do not share it with AI tools.
An AI analyzation of an email’s content, anticipating potential reactions, and refining the message accordingly.
The Future of AI in Landscape Architecture
AI’s limitations should reassure designers of one crucial truth: you are not going to be replaced by artificial intelligence. AI is not a plug-and-play solution where ideas go in and construction documents come out. The human touch remains essential in curation, problem-solving, and refinement.
Even as AI becomes more sophisticated, it will not replace designers, but redefine what is valued in the profession. In the evolving *landscape* of landscape architecture, problem-solving, curation, and human insight will be more important than ever. AI can generate ideas at an unprecedented pace, but it cannot distinguish between good and bad options. It also struggles with subtle refinements of visualizations/generations and lacks the critical judgment and problem context that experienced designers bring to the table.
Leading firms are already integrating AI strategically, using it to enhance—not replace—their role in the design process. Those who resist AI risk falling behind, while those who learn to harness it will shape the industry’s future. Landscape architecture firms must decide whether they will shape AI’s integration into their firm or be shaped by its rapid advancements.