As architecture navigates a rapidly changing world shaped by ecological urgency, social transformation, and technological acceleration, the notion of intelligence is shifting. No longer confined to individual cognition or artificial computation, intelligence can emerge from cultural memory, collective practices, and adaptive systems. In this broader sense, architecture becomes a field of convergence, where natural, artificial, and social intelligences intersect to offer new ways of designing and building.
Vernacular traditions embed generations of environmental knowledge, often transmitted through materials, construction techniques, and spatial logics finely tuned to local conditions; participatory platforms expand decision-making to wider communities to take part in shaping their environments, redistributing agency in the design process; and computational processes simulate and respond to complex data in real time bringing the capacity to analyse, simulate, and respond to complex variables — whether environmental, social, or behavioural — offering new forms of adaptability.
Together, these approaches reflect a shift from linear authorship to iterative co-creation, challenging the model of the architect as sole author, in which architecture emerges not as a fixed outcome but as a dynamic process shaped by multiple intelligences, each with its logic, rhythm, and scale.
Learning from the Ground Up: Vernacular as Accumulated Intelligence
When Bernard Rudofsky curated Architecture Without Architects, he questioned the hegemony of formal training and reframed the very definition of architecture. His exhibition at the MoMA presented a panorama of anonymous, pre-industrial buildings worldwide — dwellings, granaries, terraces, and temples — constructed without blueprints, institutions, or a defined professional class. To Rudofsky, these structures embodied what he called "non-pedigreed architecture", shaped by tradition, necessity, and climate rather than by aesthetic theory. He argued that such environments reflected "communal knowledge", developed over time through observation, imitation, and refinement. His stance was polemical but timely, inviting modern architects, then immersed in universalist ideals and industrial methods, to reconsider the intelligence embedded in lived experience and local adaptation.
More than a nostalgic exercise, Rudofsky's work opened a space for rethinking architecture as a cumulative, collective practice. Vernacular, in this sense, becomes not a style but a process: Architecture as a form of cultural and ecological negotiation. The intelligence it embodies lies not in invention but in iteration, not in authorship but in transmission. Building traditions that emerge under such logic are rarely static — they evolve with materials, rituals, and environmental pressures, responding with pragmatism and care to the needs of their communities.
This legacy finds resonance in the work of contemporary architects who engage vernacular practices not as a return to the past, but as a pathway toward more situated and sustainable futures. Francis Kéré's Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso exemplifies this approach. Confronted with limited resources and extreme temperatures, Kéré turned to compressed earth blocks, a locally available and low-energy material, and integrated passive ventilation strategies that reflect both indigenous building wisdom and climate-conscious design. The project was a technical and social success — it was built with the participation of the local community, reinforcing the idea that knowledge and labor are intertwined.
Anna Heringer's and Eike Roswag's METI School in Bangladesh shares this ethos. Using mud and bamboo in combination with local artisanship, the school reinterprets traditional building methods through architectural expression and spatial generosity. Both Kéré and Heringer demonstrate a common principle: the value of learning from place. While their projects are geographically distant, they share a commitment to activating local knowledge, engaging with communities as co-creators, and allowing material intelligence to guide design.
These examples reveal a shift in the role of the architect — from a remote designer to a facilitator of collective processes. Rather than imposing form, these architects listen, translate, and amplify what already exists. In this sense, vernacular architecture challenges the dominant narratives of innovation that center novelty and technology. It reminds us that building can also be an act of remembering — of acknowledging how structures hold layers of climate, culture, labor, and care.
This perspective finds theoretical support in the writings of Amos Rapoport, whose book House Form and Culture (1969) argues that the built environment is primarily shaped by social, cultural, and climatic factors rather than formal aesthetics. More recently, thinkers such as Anna Tsing, in The Mushroom at the End of the World, explore the idea of precarity and interdependence as generative forces — concepts that resonate with the flexible, resourceful nature of vernacular systems. In cinema, the films of Abbas Kiarostami and Satyajit Ray subtly frame the architecture of rural landscapes as active participants in daily life, not backdrops but agents within a social ecology.
Together, these insights reposition architecture not as obsolete or peripheral, but as a form of distributed intelligence, rooted in continuity, tested over time, and inherently collective. It offers a counterpoint to top-down Modernism and a foundation for rethinking design as a shared cultural practice. In a time of accelerating change, this slowness — this capacity to endure and adapt— may be one of the most intelligent strategies we have.
Breaking Down the Silos: Collaboration as an Intelligent Practice
The complexity of contemporary architectural challenges — climate instability, demographic shifts, resource scarcity, digital transformation — requires a form of intelligence that no single discipline can fully encompass. As a result, architecture is increasingly practiced as a collaborative act, where designers, engineers, ecologists, artists, sociologists, and communities come together in processes of mutual learning and negotiation. This shift moves architecture from a model of singular authorship to one of distributed expertise, dissolving traditional disciplinary silos in favor of interdisciplinary intelligence.
This is not an entirely new idea. Bauhaus already explored the integration of art, craft, and design in the early 20th century, proposing a holistic view of the built environment. What distinguishes current approaches, however, is the scale and urgency of collaboration, as well as the expansion into scientific, technological, and social fields. Architects today are co-designing with other professionals but also co-producing knowledge with machines, ecosystems, and communities.
Studio Other Spaces, founded by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann, exemplifies this approach by operating at the intersection of Art, Architecture, and Science. Their project Meles Zenawi Memorial Park in Addis Ababa weaves together landscape architecture, water infrastructure, and public memory. The design process involved historians, hydrologists, community groups, and artists to articulate a spatial narrative that transcends disciplinary boundaries. Rather than a fixed object, the park functions as an evolving system — socially charged, ecologically active, and symbolically layered.
EcoLogicStudio also blurs the lines between Biology, Computation, and Architecture. Their work on Urban Algae Canopy and the PhotoSynthetica series integrates microalgae into building systems, transforming facades into living membranes that purify air and produce biomass. These prototypes are not metaphorical gestures, but operational systems that require collaboration between designers, microbiologists, environmental scientists, and fabricators. Intelligence here is ecological and systemic, produced through dialogue between natural processes and technological tools.
MVRDV and AMO offer complementary perspectives on collaborative intelligence in architecture. MVRDV often works with data scientists, urban planners, and local governments to develop participatory, data-informed urban strategies. Projects like The Imprint or The Glass Farm combine formal experimentation with a deep sensitivity to context, achieved through public consultation, historical research, and digital modeling. Meanwhile, AMO, OMA's research and curatorial arm, extends architectural thinking into broader cultural, political, and economic systems. From exhibition designs for Prada and the Hermitage to policy-oriented projects like The Countryside initiative or the Venice Biennale, AMO's work reframes architecture as a tool for critical inquiry rather than physical production. Together, these practices illustrate how architecture today can operate across scales and disciplines, using research, narrative, and data as building materials in their own right.
These examples reveal a common thread: intelligence is not only what is known, but how it is shared. As design processes become more porous and open-ended, the architect becomes a mediator of knowledge rather than its origin. This collaborative model echoes concepts from systems theory and actor-network theory, where agency is distributed across heterogeneous elements — people, technologies, materials, and regulations. As Bruno Latour argued, we are never acting alone; instead, we are always entangled in networks of influence and interdependence.
Collaboration is not simply a method but an acknowledgment that architecture is part of a larger ecosystem of ideas, forces, and responsibilities. In rejecting disciplinary isolation, it embraces a more intelligent, adaptive, and inclusive approach to shaping the world.
Architecture as Interface: Collective Platforms and Adaptive Systems
In an increasingly interconnected world, architecture no longer exists as a fixed object but as a system of interactions. Whether through civic engagement platforms or bio-digital infrastructures, buildings and spaces today operate as interfaces mediating exchanges between users, environments, data, and processes. These interfaces channel different kinds of intelligence: social, algorithmic, material, or ecological. As such, the architecture of the present is shaped not only by form and function, but by protocols, feedback loops, and inputs.
Digital platforms have transformed how architectural decisions are made, negotiated, and implemented. Civic tech tools like Decidim, developed in Barcelona, allow citizens to propose, deliberate, and vote on urban interventions, directly influencing public policy and spatial planning. Rather than delegating urban design to experts alone, platforms like these structure civic participation as a process — one that values consensus, transparency, and adaptability.
CivicWise, a decentralized network of urban practitioners, operates at the intersection of digital infrastructure and local engagement. Through public workshops, co-creation sessions, and community mapping, it supports participatory urbanism in contexts as diverse as southern Italy and South America. Their model combines low-tech, place-based actions with open-source knowledge, redefining architecture as a collaborative, iterative, and distributed process.
Even at the level of construction, projects like WikiHouse challenge the authority of centralized design. By offering downloadable building systems that can be modified and fabricated locally, the platform democratizes access to construction knowledge and promotes resilience through decentralization. In this model, architecture becomes less about expertise and more about sharing, enabling users to act as both designers and builders.
Parallel to these participatory platforms, architects are also exploring computational and ecological systems that embed intelligence within matter, code, and process. Drawing from models in biology and swarm behavior, these systems operate through decentralization, adaptability, and feedback. Rather than fixed forms, they produce structures that learn, evolve, and respond.
As theorist Keller Easterling notes in Extrastatecraft, the real power of the built environment often lies not in form, but in the protocols that govern it. Designing these protocols becomes, in itself, an architectural act. By embracing platforms and systems, architecture moves beyond the myth of the isolated genius and toward a collective mode of production — one that is capable of engaging complexity, embracing uncertainty, and distributing authorship. Intelligence, in this context, is less about control and more about calibration: the capacity to structure conditions for things — and people — to act together.
Towards an Architecture of Many Intelligences
The notion of intelligence in architecture is no longer singular. It emerges through inherited vernacular practices, collaborative processes, digital infrastructures, and ecological systems. These varied forms of knowledge resist hierarchy and instead coexist — each contributing, in its way, to how space is imagined, negotiated, and constructed. The future of architecture lies not in choosing between the natural, the artificial, or the collective, but in articulating their overlaps.
In this expanded field, the architect's role shifts from that of author to that of mediator — one who connects people, disciplines, and systems. This demands technical competence but also cultural literacy, ecological sensitivity, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. Intelligence, in this sense, is less about imposing solutions and more about designing conditions for interaction, adaptation, and shared agency.
By learning from the ground up and designing through the cloud, architecture becomes a platform — a medium through which knowledge circulates, evolves, and finds form. In a time of global interdependence and local precarity, cultivating many intelligences may be the most vital architectural act of all.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: What Is Future Intelligence?, proudly presented by Gendo, an AI co-pilot for Architects.
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