The Silicon Architect: Transformation Towards a Data-Centric Mindset

Journal article

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Strategic Research Themes

social innovation (Community Development & Management)

Publication Details

Author list: Kemkomnerd W., Tirapas C.

Publisher: the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University

Publication year: 2025

Volume number: 22

Issue number: 1

Start page: 1

End page: 24

Number of pages: 24

ISSN: 1905-2022

URL: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85216346183&doi=10.56261%2fjars.v22.269892&partnerID=40&md5=967bfffd973966c3176a72778d2d2c76

Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)

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Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence of a novel ‘data-centric’ mindset within architecture and its implications for the architectural design process. Defined by engagement with new technology (Data Science, Big Data, Machine Learning) this mindset is driving new insight toward novel aesthetics and ultimately new disciplinary hypotheses. The literature review first tracks distinguishable transitions in the architectural mindset through the architects that have embodied them (Master Builder, Beaux-Art, Modernist, and Parametric Architect) culminating with what is here termed the ‘Silicon Architect’. Next, three archetypal case studies reveal how the architectural design process is re-potentialized through a data-centric mindset, allowing architects to ultimately escape their imaginative limits and arrive at new disciplinary ambitions. The data-centric inclinations of these architects have resulted in a fusion of human-machine cognition. Through this ‘composite’ cognition, architects can now push beyond more typical ambitions (i.e. the creation of novel forms) toward an encounter with notions of ‘hypotheses generation’ and ‘disciplinary prospection’ via non-human cognitive input. This new mindset emerging in the Silicon Architect is set to re-direct the architectural design process, and in doing so, help the discipline escape the limits of its own paradigmatic imagination in ways that operate beyond human cognitive capabilities. In this sense, research sheds light on the influences that may shape future architectural design processes and the architects who may evolve. © 2025, Faculty of Architecture and Planning Thammasat University. All rights reserved.

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