Introduction

So I'll keep it to the 15 minutes and I'll show you some pretty pictures because we're talking about creativity and design.

So basically I think we can create more, we can have more creativity with AI in the design world.

About the speaker

So a little bit more about me. I'm an interior architect and a senior consultant in the construction world.

I've delivered over 100 projects, projects, 15 plus years behind me.

And you can see from the projects there on your left that I've done retail, office, hospitality, and also some private projects.

Where AI fits in the design project process

And so first, let me take you through the project process and show you where I think AI can make a difference. And then I'll show you what I use with AI, what I do, and why it makes me gain some

Client journey vs. designer reality

time so first through the client's eyes right so the client has a project and they want it developed so first they look for an architect or an interior architect and we have a meeting and then of course the architect or the interior architect needs to come with some options

client is happy about those we make the contract the big part of the project work takes place handover happy client that's the goal right yes all the time but so let me take you through this

through the eyes of the architect of the designer we have one key moment right it's winning the project and we see that the phase before noticeably phase three with the first options tends to be be with less revenue, but this is the phase where you convince your client.

If they're not happy with the options, they're not going to work with you. So we always have a challenge there that we need to invest enough time so that the client is

happy, but at the same time, that's not where the revenue lies. So how do you balance this? And this is where I think AI can make a difference.

The time bottleneck before AI

Because in the traditional way, before AI, let's say we're taking example for a small kitchen project client comes i can give him first ideas in two weeks because i have a lot of other projects as well so i cannot only dedicate time to this

on those two weeks i have this is an average it depends with every person but let's say i have 30 to do the design thinking to come up with the ideas and then i need to go into production phase which is actually creating what the client will see because if this doesn't look good my ideas don't matter right so 30 70 so I'm basically limiting

How AI shifts time from production to creativity

my creativity so that I'm able to get something good to the client now let's bring in AI so on the top we have the traditional and basically it's the the production part where AI can help me. I will show you how later, but if I am a beginner in AI

and I've really tested this on the same project, I can already reduce these from these 10 working days to promising ideas in a shorter time. And when I get even better, it can even be five working days, which is a week.

So happy me because I spend less time, happy client because they get the ideas is faster but so you see also that with the production time becoming less as I get better the time I spend on the design thinking is increased so there's a better output I'm less frustrated because I can actually show what I want to the client rather than focusing who I have to

produce everything right so this is where I think AI can help us one is that the concept delivery time is reduced and the second one is that the effort of that was on production shifts to the creativity to the design part so let me show you the

Workflow and tool stack (meeting to presentation)

Capturing the brief with meeting transcription

workflow in action it starts already at the meeting we register everything that said with consent of course with utter AI it's an app you can have on the laptop on the phone it registers the full conversation and then you get a summary you already get a report on what was said you can write the client directly what has been agreed

Idea development with a design database and Claude

and then we go to the thinking phase with the design so i created let's call it a design database in cloud with projects where i put a lot of my inspiration all of the projects that i've done in the past and I run the brief that came out from the meeting through clothes so that it already extracts some of the inspiration that I've put in there so that I can use this already as base for this new client and the one

thing that makes me really fast here is the app that you see below it's called whisper flow it's basically word -to -text so I don't type anything I just speak to my phone i speak to my laptop and it really makes the process faster into talking exchanging with claude and i don't have to how to say structure my sentences it will structure my thoughts whatever i'm saying directly so from there i would say in maybe one hour i have already three to four

Mood boards with Midjourney and Canva

directions on which I can work to develop further ideas then we go to the draft development so I pick two ideas and I start with mid journey I don't know if you know mid journey it's basically the AI of Pinterest of AI right it's very creative you can create mood boards etc so I don't have to to go through projects anymore.

I can specifically ask to create my mood board, which images I want to make. And this takes me again, 30 minutes.

Then through Canva, I create all of my mood boards. Canva has a lot of AI tools integrated that facilitate presentation. Not just the presentations already existing, right?

but tones um facilitating removing backgrounds and things like that and then before i go to the next one i have to say even as a professional i used to work with photoshop illustrator i thought canva no that's too easy it's too simple it's not gonna work for me i almost only use canva now photoshop is on the back burner so yeah sorry photoshop and uh

From drafts to visuals: 3D modeling and AI image editing

And then I go and start creating visuals. So the step between draft and visuals, this is where AI hasn't fully helped us yet because we have to still build the 3D models. We have to draw some plants. But the good thing is that we can do a rough representation.

presentation and then with nano banana which is an image editor from gemini it can help me create pretty pictures so you'll see one just after and then of course my presentation i go back with claude and with canva and then i'm ready to go and just to say before this whole process

especially with the part of rendering right because you want to see images you want to see what your project can look like this can take on its own three full days right because you have to draw the plans you have to create the 3d model then the

rendering only already can take up to 12 hours if you want really high quality rendering and this process here can take me maybe five eight hours depending on the complexity of the project so you see already where the time is gained right right?

Example: a sage-green kitchen concept

So here we go to the actual project. On the left, you see the mood board.

So the two kitchen images, these were made with Midjourney because I wanted a sage green kitchen. I put in the materials.

I have a database of images with the products. And then in SketchUp, I I built a rough image of the kitchen. And I extracted some plants from that image.

And then you come in with nano banana. And from this image, you get to that image in 10 seconds. And of course, you need to tweak it. It needs to match exactly what you want to express.

So maybe you spend 30 minutes on it. But it's already much faster. and it's the same with the plans and the elevations and with this you can really

showcase to your client what it is that you have in mind for them it doesn't need to be exactly perfect but it already gives the the clear direction of where it can go and it's a great base to discuss next steps changes etc yes yeah

Practical limitations: modeling and rendering bottlenecks

But it's a pretty, I mean, I'm not a professional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it takes a long time before you know what you're doing. It is. It is.

But so for, I mean, it depends on the project. If you have a project with curves, et cetera, you need to go into another program that can handle that. SketchUp is very basic.

For a kitchen, it's excellent because it's quite, you know, you already have blocks. Kitchens have very regular sizes.

So this is a bottleneck that's not out yet. but the bigger part is the rendering because once you have this you have to apply the materials you have to apply the light you have to tweak really to the detail and then the rendering takes hours it takes hours if then your image

is not good you go back again you tweak the part that goes into rendering you don't tweak your sketchup anymore until you've spoken with the client so yes agree but there there's no not yet or I don't know yet yeah but it is it is so

basically this is where the time would remain within the concept phase but to get to this this can be done now in half an hour over 12 hours so it's it's a

Q&A: tool choices, tokens, and Midjourney vs. Nano Banana

a huge huge difference for us so Claude I work so I work in the project and I create artifacts with some guidelines and I just talk with Claude with the whisper flow yeah so Claude doesn't give me images it gives me I know.

Yeah. You can train them. I mean, depending. Yes.

Yes. With the code, you can get images and you can get whatever you want. Yeah.

You have not gone through the work. No. The voice part to the, like, the... Yeah.

No. It remains on the idea development and what we wanted to showcase, and then the image parts.

You use it for the presentation. Yes. That's what you say. Yes.

Feedback to the presentation. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

There was a question. How often do you run out of tokens? Not yet, but for Claude, no, not yet, because I don't use that that much for images.

You have many tools. Yeah, I use, that's the thing, because I have the suite, I'm not relying on only one tool, so I can play with that. but for Claude it's mostly the text and because I have the project with everything saved in it

there's not a huge ping pong so I don't need that many tokens no the complex ones still because sometimes it gives me yeah

yeah there was a question yeah why do you use particularly mid journey in the first step because so jumping directly to Gemini because to me so first and mid journey already every image you create is available right so you can use already the database that they have so first I use the database before I start creating

my own and in in for example a nano banana I would need to say exactly what I want as where in mid journey it's still the creative brother of nano banana so it will it will create a bit more crazy things in the beginning and then you can fine -tune it and first I enjoy it more but second I think it's also less dry in

the beginning yeah yeah yes yeah exactly in nano banana yeah you can you can you can yeah and you can you can yeah sure you can also turn the area where you want it in nano banana yeah And instead of just using those settings manually, you can just define specific points, also for nano banana.

And they are considering all those details, lightning or perspective, whatever. I mean, you could do that as well. You could, yeah, yeah.

It's a personal preference. It's a personal preference, also, because in the design phase, I'm not yet blocking myself on. And especially having that library kind of path.

Yes. But I think if a hundred people would be this flow, they would do it differently. Differently. Yes.

Yeah. It's my flow. Yeah. Personal choice.

Yeah. There was a question there. You just want a quick question. Did you finish your presentation?

No, no, no. No, no. I mean, I have three slides, so it's okay. I have three slides.

Yeah, yeah. There. Yeah. Question?

You're not going to ask me the answer. No, no.

Conclusion: faster concepts, happier clients

but so basically when the client comes with that kitchen within a few days i can tell them listen we can go to this yeah and then i think the fun thing that we do now more because we have the tools is that then you know we can animate the image and you have the wow effect for the client and you win the client yeah so yeah so this is the tools that I use and that's

where I think that by using AI we are able to free up time or focus more of our time on the creativity part rather than on the production part