Two architects sat down at Milan Design Week 2026 and argued that artificial intelligence could protect local building traditions instead of wiping them out.
Arun Sharma and Jaskaran Singh were the guests on the second episode of the Room For Dreams podcast, recorded live in cooperation with INDX|GLOBAL. Sharma is principal architect of Atrey & Associates. Singh holds the same title at FAB Studio. Their subject was the “digital vernacular.”
The usual worry in the profession is that AI flattens everything it touches. The two turned that around. In their telling, algorithms do not dictate how a building looks. They decode traditional building practices, and fast.
One example is the environmental groundwork. Studying sunlight, ventilation and heat gain used to eat up a big share of the design process, and the architects described software that now speeds it up.
Craftsmanship comes out changed, too. The episode sketches a partnership between human artisans and advanced CNC machinery, with each doing something the other cannot.
The centre of the conversation is less concrete. Sharma and Singh talk about a “fourth dimension,” a philosophy they say 3D software and automated scripts cannot capture. They leave it partly unexplained, and listeners are pushed to ask what actually anchors a physical place. What the architect decides a space should make people feel and remember, the episode suggests, stays a human call.
