We find out what’s next in architecture and design visualisation from 5HT’s Philip Buckingham and Raj Lutchman – including the role of artificial intelligence.

5HT is a London-based multidisciplinary design agency with a specialism in visualising and illustrating design concepts in still and moving images. Blending freehand sketching skills and traditional arts media with cutting-edge technology, the studio works with architects, designers and developers to bring design ideas to life in compelling ways for audiences including public consultees, planners, and consumers.

ColourDesign Library How is the visualisation sector changing, and what are the latest advances for architects and designers?

Raj Lutchman AI is definitely having an impact. Large language models and prompt-based image generation has been around for a while now, with the neural net technology already established in software like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Basically, architects and designers can now type in a ‘brief’ and see what materialises, which has a lot of potential as a design tool. From our point of view, AI means visualisation has become quicker and therefore more affordable for clients, partly because from a practical perspective we can now do things like interpolate additional frames in animated sequences. 

Philip Buckingham Part of 5HT’s role is scoping the capabilities of new technology by running research and development projects and testing software. We help clients understand the best uses of emerging technology for their businesses. There are still a lot of unknowns around AI, but we want to take away the fear. For instance, in the UK long hours for architects’ visualisation teams is still the norm but the technology ultimately has the power to improve people’s working lives by creating a more streamlined, integrated and iterative process.

ColourDesign Library What’s next in visualisation for the built environment?

Raj Lutchman In terms of technology the next big thing, which is still very new, is the capacity to add hand-drawn design sketches to the text-based prompts – that brings a whole new dimension because it gives architects and designers a lot more scope to sculpt the outputs.

Philip Buckingham Sketch-based input is likely to be really useful at design ideation stage because current AI software is completely based on data sets of things that already exist and is therefore quite generic. The input of hand-drawn sketches is a game changer because it means human design thinking remains key. ­

We’re also currently developing an AI model based on our studio drawing styles. It can generate the type of freehand illustrations used to communicate key messages to planners or during public engagement – but much more quickly and in easily revisable formats. I believe that freehand drawing will remain an invaluable design and communication tool, but that it’s a skill that can be augmented and amplified by new technology.

To find out more about the work of 5HT click here.

To find out about Philip Buckingham’s online Draw Like An Architect classes click here.