UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Frank Jacobus, professor and head of the Department of Architecture and Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, is set to go on a four-week artist residency at Loghaven in Knoxville, Tennessee, to work on a sculpture garden pavilion designed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Loghaven is a competitive retreat-based artist residency welcoming creatives from many disciplines. Jacobus will reside there from May 20 to June 14. The residency asks candidates to pitch a project, so Jacobus and his business partner, Marc Manack, associate professor of architecture at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, pitched a pavilion designed by using AI as a tool for their creative ideation.
Jacobus and Manack are principals of SILO Architecture, Research and Design.
Jacobus said the final result may not look like the AI rendering, but the tool has allowed the duo to get creative and flexible with materials.
“The design process can be in the abstract, but it can also include cost, material and what’s available,” Jacobus said. “It feels like we’re jazz musicians riffing and improvising, and when opportunities arise, we take them based on the materials we can get.”