During the upcoming academic year, the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture will launch the first edition of its new Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence for Architecture & Design, aimed at architects and engineers from disciplines related to architectural design who want to train as experts in artificial intelligence (AI) processes. The programme will be led by lecturers Ana Cocho and Diego Navarro and by full professor from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Dr Josep Muntañola. 

Based on an interdisciplinary approach, the programme aims to deepen the relationship between architecture and computation in the methodological process of design, through the study of artificial intelligence and its algorithms. “Architects have arrived late to the age of artificial intelligence, but we cannot avoid the fact that this change in humanity will also affect our discipline. It therefore has become necessary to train future architects so they become equipped with AI-related skills,” explained the course directors. “In comparison to other programmes, our master’s degree takes a more technical and theoretical approach both from a computational point of view and also based on its implications in terms of universal architecture,” they stressed.  

The master's degree, which will be taught face-to-face, offers a total of 25 places and will run from September to June. “We hope that students can serve as a bridge between two areas: whether as specialists in offices who rely on new AI methodologies or as consultants in much more technological areas that require architectural knowledge to guide design or make decisions,” concluded Ana Cocho and Diego Navarro.