Should we embrace AI to enrich drawing practice in Aotearoa?

Should we embrace Artificial Intelligence or Large Language Models to enrich drawing practice in Aotearoa?

In collaboration with AUT School of Future Environments, join us at Objectspace for a lively debate responding to Rendered Futures: Drawing architecture.

This debate is not intended to be the kind of specialised discussion about AI or LLM one might find at an industry conference. Instead, we’ve invited architectural practitioners, designers and academics to share unique insights shaped by their own experience and expertise – insights into the possible impacts of these technologies on drawing practice, and its relationship to our built environment.

Adjudicated by Micheal McCabe, this house proposes the motion: should we embrace AI & LLM to enrich drawing practice in Aotearoa?

Speaking for the affirmative are: Clinton Watkins, Megan Burfoot and Simon Glaister.

Arguing the negative are: Charles Walker, Karamia Müller and Pip Cheshire.

Micheal McCabe introduces the premise:

In 2025 the presence of the digital render is felt across hoardings, publications, and algorithmic feeds. Through a 50-year arc, the digital has integrated itself into approaches that sustain and enrich every practice. Throughout Rendered Futures we find the hybridisation of drawing methods; hand drawing translated into the screen or digital technologies mediating analogue artefacts. They are two sides of the same drawing board.

Whether they are digital or analogue, the tools located by designers reflect their own passions and practices. The diversity generated has allowed the discipline to expand forms and modes of architectural drawing to best respond to past, present and future challenges. At the precipice of another emergent technology, can we imagine this same amicable trajectory?

As AI & LLM integrate themselves into CAD, Drawing Platforms, Office Management and Communication tools, where does this leave the practice of architecture? Can the last 50 years be seen as a mirror, a harbinger, a phantom to this disrupted future? This debate hinges its motion on two parts; whether to embrace AI & LLM despite ethical, educational, economic and ecological implications and, if we can move past these concerns, how can AGI & LLM influence, impact and possibly enrich drawing practice here in Aotearoa. And so, the debate begins.

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Micheal McCabe is a Filipino-Pākehā designer and educator based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He lectures at AUT Huri te ao hoahoanga and collaborates with public arts organisations, galleries and theatre companies to create engaging, dynamic and socially engaged work.

Dr Clinton Watkins is an artist, experimental musician, and researcher whose work spans sound, video, and documentary film. He creates immersive audiovisual experiences using custom electronic hardware and computing technologies, exploring themes of memory, perception, and sensory awareness. Watkins has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including at the Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Centre Pompidou, and IRCAM (Paris). He is represented by Starkwhite Gallery. He is a core member of the Field Recordings collective, working as sound designer and composer, and participated in the Sonic Mmabolela residency led by Francisco López in 2018. He holds a Doctorate from Elam School of Fine Arts and is an Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology, where he specialises in sound and installation practices. His current research includes collaborative projects with IRCAM, new sound composition, and the continued development of video installations and documentary films.

Simon Glaister is an architectural designer, co-director of Groupwork Aotearoa, and member of pre:fab platform. He dropped out of a PhD at Universit. di Pavia and was fired by artist Antony Gormley before completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts at AUT, Bachelor of Architectural Design at RMIT, and Master of Architecture at UoA.

Dr Megan Burfoot is a prolific researcher and scholar in the fields of architecture, construction, and environmental science, with a particular focus on enhancing the built environment for human well-being. Throughout her career, she has contributed significantly to the understanding of various aspects of architectural design, construction methodologies, and their impact on individuals' mental health and overall quality of life.

Dr Charles Walker is Head of School – School of Future Environments Huri te Ao at Auckland University of Technology. He is a Founding Professor of the School, which was established in 2020 to promote transformative socio-technical education and research across architecture, civil systems engineering, construction, regenerative ecologies, and creative technologies. Walker worked as an architect in private practice internationally between 1982 and 96. Alongside AUT he has held academic positions at the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, and he is actively engaged in design panels and review, mentoring, and judging across the expanded design and architecture fields. In 2016 Walker was Creative Director of Future Islands, the Aotearoa pavilion exhibition at the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture.

Dr Karamia Müller is a Pacific academic specialising in Pacific space concepts that disrupt colonial paradigms. A Senior Lecturer at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, her research centres on advancing Indigenous and Pacificled methodologies that challenge structural inequality and imagine sovereign futures. Her research critically engages with methodologies that prioritise Indigenous and Pacific epistemologies. Her research explores contemporary Pacific architecture and art, women’s architectural and art production in the region, and the use of social media and the role of digital media technologies production of Pacific digital space. A central research interest is how these intersecting practices constitute and reflect the lived realities of Pacific Diaspora. She currently holds a Mana Tūāpapa Future Leader Fellowship.

Pip Cheshire is Director at Cheshire Architects. He was a co-founder of Jasmax and is a past President of Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects. He was awarded the NZIA Gold Medal in 2013. He has lectured widely and held the position of Adjunct Professor of Architecture at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland from 2003 to 2008. He has been a vocal advocate on a wide range of issues related to city design and the natural environment in Aotearoa New Zealand, and was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2024.

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This event is presented in partnership between Objectspace and AUT School of Future Environments.