On 4th December 2017 a group of leading thinkers got together to discuss the influence of artificial intelligence on the lighting design community. Called together by Florence Lam, Director & Global Lighting Leader at ARUP, we and guests from the Society of Light and Lighting, discussed how design would change, how ARUP were already using algorithms to reduce design time, how designers will react to the changes in workplace, and myself, I added thoughts on how there will be huge changes in the way we manufacture not just luminaires, but complete buildings including the building services.
The future will undoubtedly be a challenge as technology takes away the mundane tasks and designers have to be more and more creative in how they make professional design count for something. But I think it will be more challenging for manufacture. The thought of a 3D printed building is becoming a reality. Add the ability to 3D print electronics onto materials such as glass and paper and it doesn’t take too much of a leap to imagine how complex our printing capabilities will be within the next decade. If you can 3D print your lighting right into the space, the future of manufacture and design will look completely different from now.
