This speculative essay examines a single drawing, produced in a collaboration between the authors and a Turtle robot, in a search for methods to evaluate and document provenance in artificial intelligence and robotic design. Reflecting upon the layers of authorship in our case study reveals the complex relationship that already exists between human and machine collaborators. In response to this unseen provenance, we propose new modes to document the full range of creative contribution to the design and production of artifacts from intellectual inputs to digital representations to physical labor. A more comprehensive system for artificial intelligence/robotic attribution could produce counter-narratives to technological development which more fully acknowledge the contributions of both humans and machines. As artificially intelligent design technologies distinguish themselves with distinct capabilities and eventual autonomy, a system of embedded attribution becomes the basis for human–machine collaboration, indeterminacy, and unexpected new applications for existing tools and methods.

In the 21st century, technologies like the Internet are commonly regarded as an empowering and uplifting force. With the broad availability of low-cost distribution channels, software development tools, and rapid prototyping machines such as 3D printers, the potential exists for nearly anyone to disrupt industries and find success. This optimism is mirrored in architecture, where, over the last 25 years, technologies such as CAD (Computer Aided Design), parametric design, BIM (Building Information Modeling), digital fabrication, and robotics have been a critical site of innovation, as architects seek to challenge traditional methods of designing and delivering buildings.

Cultural narratives of digital technology in architecture rely heavily upon stories of unique, almost always male, genius and often deny the collective intellectual labor of technology’s construction. These narratives are perpetuated by a historical record which does not fully address the contributions of women to the history of digital technology. Because this history is not well-documented, there is an opportunity to represent these events in a manner which is more inclusive and equitable. Toward that end, this article focuses on narratives from the SOM Computing Group (1964–1990), as a means of correcting the historical record and addressing gender equity in the profession. The interviews collected here highlight several women who helped to integrate technologies into architecture through professional experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration. While it is not a comprehensive history, this work represents the beginning of an agenda to produce a history of technology in architecture which better reflects the contributions of women to the digital designs of today.

When artificial intelligence participates in design, the notion of attribution–and accompanying systems of rights, credit, royalties, etc.–is brought into question. Without some means of identifying and negotiating the use of the contributions of non-human authors, works produced by algorithmic systems and Als may lack the requirements to be recognized as works of authorship under international laws or in academic institutions. This deficiency could prohibit databases of digital models, algorithms, and toolpaths, for example, from being appropriately accessed by other Als to improve designs and create new ones. Machine learning is most efficient when it has not only access to data but also metadata: histories and networks of associations. This is critical to the analysis of designs, which are almost never singular works but rather built from numerous parts, previous designs, and the work of multiple authors. Thus, establishing provenance–the sources, such as participants and processes, involved in producing or delivering an artifact–will be critical to the development of designs in the future.

This is a call for the development of a more robust theoretical position about the gender implications of advanced parametric design and the use of machines to design and fabricate architecture. As digital fabrication has made material the network conditions of cyberfeminism, it is time to revisit the relationships between feminism, architecture, and technology. We propose a framework that relies upon intellectual traditions of feminism and deliberately focuses on developing technologies as a locus of power and influence in architecture. Architecture has been slow to fully acknowledge, incorporate, and integrate women into its practices.3 Within the building profession, digital technology has emerged—and in many ways, is still emerging—as a site of architectural influence: those who control the process of design through technology control architecture. CNC fabrication and robotic construction are cultivating new cultures of digital craft, and in searching for future opportunities, we would do well to recall the long history that links craft and feminine labor. By looking again at the often-neglected contributions of Ada Lovelace and the Jacquard loom to computation and digital fabrication in the nineteenth century or a more recent project such as the Elytra Filament Pavilion, we might see how this digital moment has been framed by feminist craft rather than the more familiar origin stories that surround computation.

Conventions of authorship and attribution historically excluded or erased women’s contributions to the built environment. As frequent co-authors and collaborators, women’s stories often do not fit into conventional historical narratives about how architecture is created. In response, this essay proposes a technology called “attribution frameworks”: a digital method for creating a transparent record of architectural labor. The authors argue that the integration of digital tools into architectural design offers a new space for more equally attributing, documenting, and counting labor and contributions to the discipline. This space allows for a more rich and inclusive narrative of contributions to architectural production for the future.

Architects do things. One of the most unquestioned mandates of architectural education is that of ‘doing’: building, acting, making, fabricating. Captured in Le Corbusier’s famous maxim: ‘architecture or revolution’, building is often considered not only the best solution to a problem, but one that gives urgency and legitimacy to architecture and architectural education. Yet the increasing awareness of intimate relations between capitalism and architecture, labor injustices and construction, environmental havoc and urban planning, corporate power and racial violence and much more has put architects in the uncomfortable position of having to confront the consequences of ‘doing’.

While technology has rapidly become more accessible to more people, its benefits are not always evenly shared. This paper searches for methods of identifying and defining gender inequality in architecture as it relates to digital technology and computation. The authors begin by documenting and then questioning existing metrics for measuring women’s participation in architecture, then look outside the field to STEM disciplines, educational research, and economic theory as means of framing this research agenda. By examining and critiquing current patterns of technological distribution and academic culture, the authors seek to foster greater equality in education, architecture, and, consequently, the built environment.