Artificial intelligence in teaching at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering
From the creative design process to engineering applications: AI opens up new avenues in architectural and civil engineering education. A newly funded project in urban planning, innovative teaching formats in structural design and initial applications in civil engineering demonstrate the potential of the technology.
The integration of artificial intelligence into teaching is playing an increasingly important role at TU Dortmund University's Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Various chairs are already using innovative AI methods to show students new design and technical possibilities.
KI.StadtLabor: Multimodal use of generative AI in architecture teaching
On 01.02.2025, the Chair of Urban Design began its new practical project on the use of multimodal generative AI in architecture teaching as part of the KI:edu.nrw project. Digital planning tools have long been established in architecture. Generative AI models that can process graphical input in addition to classic text prompts are opening up new possibilities. The ability to use image input significantly expands creative control in image generation and allows targeted control of the output. This development opens up new design and teaching methods. Hand-drawn sketches, photographs from excursions and analog material collages can serve as a starting point for AI-generated cityscapes and architectural concepts. The aim of the project is to convey architecture in a holistic way, combining digital teaching and design methods with traditional techniques that can be experienced through the senses. The result is a didactic model that enables students to engage with architecture in a deeper cognitive way. This hybrid approach allows teachers and students to actively test the atmospheric and emotional dimension of spatial perception, while at the same time getting to know the potential of generative AI models and using them for their design processes. The project is part of the KI:edu.nrw program, which supports pioneering AI projects at various universities in North Rhine-Westphalia, including Detmold University of Music, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Bielefeld University.
AI in building construction: man.machine.image
The Chair of Building Construction is also already using artificial intelligence in its teaching. In the fourth seminar in a row, architecture students are studying how AI-generated images can serve as the basis for architectural designs in the elective subject Man.Machine.Image. They learn to generate specific architectural representations through targeted prompts and to place these in a constructive context. Both the technical and creative possibilities of AI are explored. The aim of the course is to enable students to engage intensively with the technology and to question its application in architecture. In addition, artificial intelligence is already being used in Interdisciplinary Project 2. In this project, which follows the guiding principle of the Dortmund Model, students from both disciplines learn about interdisciplinary collaboration and jointly develop a supporting structure. The focus is on the coordinated linking of design, supporting structure and building construction. Since last year, the project groups have been using AI-generated photos to communicate their ideas in the colloquium and quickly develop approaches in the first phase of the design. The final images are then used to derive construction details or develop actual spatial concepts from atmospheric images.
AI in civil engineering: Potentials and challenges
In recent years, the Chair of Structural Engineering has been able to expand its teaching with virtual building models and structural models as part of two projects funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education. At the virtual construction site, for example, students can use augmented reality (AR) on their mobile devices to follow the individual construction stages of a detached house on campus over a period of four weeks. In the Master's degree course Digitalization in Construction, students from both disciplines also gain their first insights into the use of artificial intelligence in construction. Chair holder Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Hartz sees great potential in its use, but emphasizes that the use of AI in civil engineering is still in its infancy.
There is still a clear trend: more and more students are using Kl tools to deepen their knowledge of lecture content and prepare for exams, and the department is focusing its teaching projects on a forward-looking combination of artificial intelligence and architecture and civil engineering teaching. The developments to date show the growing potential of AI as a valuable tool in academic education and research. In particular, the funding of the new project at the Chair of Urban Design underlines how promising the use of AI will be in the coming years and what an important contribution TU Dortmund University is making to the innovative further development of teaching in civil engineering in NRW.
Author: Edina Begić