Chatbots for Design

About

Chatbots for Design explores how conversational AI can support public participation in architecture, urban design, and planning. The project develops methods and prototype systems that help design teams collect richer input, maintain dialogue with larger publics, and translate community knowledge into usable design insight.

The work is motivated by a simple challenge: participation is essential, but it is often difficult to scale. Public meetings, workshops, and surveys can exclude people because of time, language, confidence, expertise, or access. Conversational systems offer a different kind of participation channel: one that can be available over time, adapt to different users, and invite more reflective responses than conventional forms.

Our research studies where chatbots are useful, where they fall short, and how they should be combined with human facilitation. We are especially interested in hybrid participation models, where AI tools broaden access while in-person workshops continue to support trust, deliberation, and collective decision-making.

Current work focuses on visual chatbots for design. These systems communicate through text, diagrams, and spatial representations, allowing participants and designers to discuss proposals more concretely. The goal is not to replace public dialogue, but to create better interfaces between communities, design teams, and the complex information involved in planning.

Funding