Beyond the hype: Reflections on the implications of AI for urban design education

Abstract

The emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping Higher Education and professional practice, demanding critical reflection on its implications for Urban Design education. This viewpoint explores how AI challenges educational models and transforms design practice. In higher education, GenAI offers opportunities for personalized learning and innovative teaching, but raises enormous challenges regarding assessment validity, learners’ intellectual development, and ethics. Within Urban Design, AI is already being used for tasks such as data analysis, image generation, design generation, and optimization. But AI development and adoption have the potential to further transform design, expanding automation and questioning the role of the designer. Drawing on literature, interviews with UK practitioners, and critical reflection, this viewpoint puts forward some reflections about ways in which urban design education may engage with and respond to the emergence of AI. First, institutions must adopt a critically engaged approach, balancing innovation with caution and ethical responsibility. Second, assessment practices require structural redesign to safeguard learning validity while embracing AI’s potential productively. Third, curricula must be updated to integrate critical AI literacy while protecting fundamental design and spatial reasoning skills. Fourth, AI offers potential to enhance teaching and learning. As AI becomes integral to design practice, educators must reimagine pedagogies to ensure graduates are equipped to navigate and shape an AI-augmented urban future. Ultimately, urban design education stands at a crossroads - where the choices made today will determine whether AI enhances or undermines the intellectual and ethical foundations of the discipline.