Second Lives: AI-Assisted Design of Spatial Structures from Reclaimed Steel

This workshop explores a material-first design approach where reclaimed structural steel—documented through deconstruction records—becomes the starting point for new spatial structures. Participants will learn to interpret salvage documentation and use AI agents (vision models and retrieval systems) to assess and filter available inventories. The second half focuses on form-finding strategies that work within the constraints of finite, irregular material stock to propose new architectural applications.

• Based on WPM’s specialty in design and construction and active initiatives within the company, participants will be introduced to the concept of reclaimed materials, their documentation, and how real-world disassembly of structures works.
• AI agents will be studied to extract information from documented materials, as well as for early assessment of reusability of deconstructed material based on on-site/lab images.
• Rhino/Grasshopper parametric models will be studied for parametric investigation of constraint-based form-finding strategies for spatial structures using non-standard stock.