First Year Design Studio In The Age of Ai: Synthetic Vs Hybrid Design Spaces

Integration of artificial intelligence in design education presents new opportunities to rethink the creative processes and interactions between students and design tools in the first-year design studios. This study examines how multimodal inputs—text, images, and video—shape AI’s ability to generate design solutions, focusing on both synthetic (AI-generated) and hybrid (AI-student collaboration) approaches. Through a comparative framework, the research highlights how the diversity of contextual data impacts AI's creative output. Employing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the study systematically evaluates the generated design solutions based on criteria such as design development potential, problem-solving strength, and spatial qualities. While the synthetic approach relies exclusively on pre-trained AI models, the hybrid approach integrates student-generated inputs to enrich the contextual framework and foster a more nuanced design process. This investigation aims to lay the groundwork for effective strategies to integrate AI into design pedagogy, promoting collaborative and reflective learning environments.