How AI is changing work
Design & architecture
More variants, sharper choices.
Designers and architects use AI to make variants, impressions and analyses faster, from a floor plan to a truck cab. The heavy calculation work and the first images move to the computer. Understanding the brief, choosing and justifying remain the craft.
What changes
- Making variants and impressions goes faster, so there is more to compare in the sketch phase.
- Parametric design runs scenarios for materials, energy and daylight.
- Mood boards, texts and client presentations start with AI as a first draft.
- Separate AI tools are linked together in the studio's own way of working.
Where people make the difference
- Understanding the question behind the brief: for whom, where and why.
- Choosing between variants and explaining the choice to the client, users and the permit authority.
- Creative direction and responsibility for the design, including legal responsibility.
How AI is already used
AI in almost every design phase
Architecture firm Groosman involves AI in almost every phase of the design process and built a system in which different AI tools use each other's information.
ArchitectenwebParametric design
At Royal HaskoningDHV, parametric design speeds up scenario analyses and helps save materials and energy. The BNA Academie offers a training course on this for architects.
BNAMore variants for a truck
The DAF Design Center uses AI to make and compare more design variants in a short time. The DAF Museum showed this in the exhibition Design met AI (Design with AI).
DAF MuseumDesign studios already work with AI
In a 2023 BNO survey, 69 percent of design studios and 60 percent of independent designers used AI tools, mainly for text, inspiration and mood boards.
BNOAI as a design material
At Dutch Design Week 2025, TU Delft showed projects that treat AI as a material, such as From Text to Clay by Vera van der Burg, which uses ceramics to work with AI more consciously.
TU DelftCritical debate in the profession
Architects from MVRDV and Tangram, among others, discussed at Pakhuis de Zwijger what AI offers design and urban planning, and what could be lost in terms of human scale.
Pakhuis de Zwijger
Where the sector is heading
In July 2026 the BNO, the Dutch association of designers, issued a guideline for generative AI in design practice: AI is a tool, creative direction stays with the designer. The guideline rests on AI literacy, responsible use and European legislation.
AdformatieTU Delft wants every student to be able to use AI responsibly and critically within their own field, and is therefore redesigning courses and assessments instead of banning AI.
TU Delft, 2026In 2026, the AI voor Woningbouw (AI for Housing Construction) programme is awarding 10 to 15 vouchers of up to 30,000 euros for practical trials with AI in housing construction, from design to execution.
TKI Bouw en Techniek
What a maker can do for you here
- “Make ten mood images of our design in different materials, for the client presentation.”
- “Build a parametric model that calculates daylight and views for each home.”
- “Turn our sketches into a short animation or walkthrough for residents.”
- “Link our AI tools together, so analysis, variants and drawings fit together.”
Researched on 5 October 2026. Know a good example from the Netherlands? Let us know.