Post by Zeina Elnabarawy

During the "Church for the Future" Post-Olympics workshop in Politecnico di Milano, our team addressed this challenge at the historic Arco Della Pace. Developed entirely through an AI-driven workflow, our proposal, "Campo Luminoso", reimagines the monumental site not as a rigid structure, but as a dynamic, sensory threshold for interreligious dialogue. The Approach: AI-Driven Mapping of Invisible Forces Rather than starting with traditional drafting methods, we leveraged generative AI tools to analyze, synthesize, and visualize the intangible dynamics of Piazza Sempione: - Pedestrian Flow: Using AI to model and interpret how communities naturally navigate and occupy the square. - Light Vectors: Simulating solar paths to utilize natural radiance as a primary computational design element. - Collective Memory: Translating the emotional resonance of the Winter Olympics' interreligious opening into spatial data. The Design: An Atmospheric Threshold "Campo luminoso" replaces traditional architectural boundaries with responsive, micro-urban patterns generated through AI workflows. The intervention introduces an open-ring frame that functions as an urban lantern. Instead of isolating users from the city, the structure visually compresses and expands in response to the square's natural energy. At dusk, the installation intensifies dissolving the imposing, classical order of the arch into a unified field of light that welcomes all traditions under a shared sky. Final Takeaway This project reinforced our belief that the most profound sacred spaces are often built not from concrete and steel, but from atmosphere, light, and shared human experience. It also demonstrated how AI can serve as a powerful collaborative tool to help architects visualize and design the invisible. Deep gratitude to my teammates and the workshop organizers for pushing the boundaries of what religious architecture can be. You can read the full feature on the philosophy behind the workshop on Church for the Future Post-Olympics. Quando la città diventa rito: l'Arco della Pace e la scena religiosa del futuro - Themaprogetto.it #Architecture #UrbanDesign #Milan #AIinDesign #GenerativeArchitecture #LuminousArchitecture #InterreligiousSpace #DesignResearch