The MaCAD is a unique online programme training a new generation of architects, engineers and designers ready to develop skills into the latest softwares, computational tools, BIM technologies and AI towards innovation for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry.
“A theory class on Matias del Campo forced a difficult question: are we using AI, worshipping it, or finally ready to conduct it?“ Part I — The Machine We Do Not See Simondon and the two ways we fail the machine Matias del Campo is an architect, educator, and co-founder of SPAN. His practice sits … Read more
Introduction Finding the right home isn’t just about square meters or the number of bedrooms. A floor plan that works beautifully for one household can be completely unsuitable for another. Parents with young children, remote workers, retirees, or pet owners all experience the same space differently. Yet today’s search tools still rely on simple filters … Read more
Building Sensi, a sensory copilot for architectural floor plans. In architecture, we model everything. Structure, cost, energy, code compliance. Layer after layer of analysis that makes a building accountable before it’s built. But one thing was missing from the stack: how the space will actually feel. Not feel as in emotion. Feel as in the … Read more
Every design decision has a structure. For the AI studio seminar, we built PermanenceOS , a structural intelligence platform that helps architects understand the consequences of early design decisions, before they get expensive to change. The Core Problem In early design, structural decisions get locked in fast and by the time the engineer is brought … Read more
A fine-tuned AI pipeline that transforms any photograph of a building into a Gado-style satirical editorial cartoon — because every significant structure carries two stories, and architecture photography usually only tells one of them. Why Cartoonify — Buildings Are Political Objects. Photographs Rarely Say So. Architectural photography tends toward the celebratory. The clean angle. The … Read more
Introduction When we imagine a corridor in a typical apartment building, we picture a purely functional passageway — a space designed for movement, not for meeting. These circulation zones are often long, narrow, and socially inert. Yet they structure much of our daily experience of housing, shaping how residents encounter one another. Cohousing projects show … Read more
For the Graph Machine Learning (ML) seminar we took a classic New York brownstone and asked how graph ML can read the way a building is organized, and what happens when that organization changes. Objective: Our goal was to model an old and a new brownstone layout as spatial graphs in TopologicPy, compare how the … Read more
The building The Narkomfin Building was completed in 1930 in Moscow, designed by Moisei Ginzburg and Ignaty Milinis. It is one of the most recognized examples of Soviet Constructivist housing — a dom-kommuna, or communal house. The design was deliberately unconventional: kitchens were minimal because residents were expected to eat in a shared canteen, and living … Read more
Every great building begins as a small model and a messy desk Abstract As architects we spend hours making physical study models, cutting foam, assembling balsa, running the 3D printer. These models are essential, but the process is slow. Crafty Studio asks a simple question: “What if you could see your design as a physical … Read more
The promise of AI agents is compelling: systems that can sense their environment, plan strategically, take action, and learn from experience. But as organizations begin deploying these systems in production, a troubling reality emerges. The very capabilities that make AI agents powerful—their ability to reason, adapt, and solve novel problems—also make them frustratingly unpredictable. This … Read more
Intro This digital essay explores the growing trend of designing interior spaces for image consumption rather than functional use. This project investigates the consequences for public spaces when they are reshaped by the “economy of likes”. Drawing on Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, the researchers argue that social relations are increasingly mediated through images, … Read more
A theory review of Chapter 18 of Russell & Norvig’s Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach This chapter was assigned for the AIA Theory seminar at the beginning of the MaCAD 2025–2026 program, as part of a sequence of foundational readings on artificial intelligence. The seminar pairs canonical AI literature with discussion around its implications for … Read more
MUTAVERSE is an AI-powered reality mutation engine. The project began with a simple speculative question: What if one architectural image could evolve into multiple alternative realities while still preserving its original identity? From Image Styling to Reality Mutation Rather than using generative AI only as a visual styling tool, MUTAVERSE explores how architecture can transform … Read more
Can Street Geometry Predict Urban Safety Risk? A machine-learning pipeline that classifies street morphology into risk typologies — from OpenStreetMap features to multi-city deployment, dead ends included. This post documents the full arc of our Urban Safety project — not just the results, but the reasoning, the wrong turns, and what we learned from them. … Read more
