Drawing Attention To Architecture In The Age Of Social Media, Ft. Hamza Shaikh

Drawing Attention to Architecture in the Age of Social Media, ft. Hamza Shaikh
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[00:00:00]

Stephen Drew: Hello there. Lunchtime crew.

Oh my goodness. My computer's crashing. Woo. Let me see if I can.

Hamza Shaikh: And he's crashed. Welcome everyone [00:01:00] to the Architecture Social. This episode, Stephen speaks to me, but the plot twist is Stephen is just a ghost. So I will be channeling Stephen's inner voice and interviewing myself. I don't even know if people can watch this. Are there comments? There are comments. Leave a comment if you can.

If you can hear me?

Stephen Drew: May. This live stream is gonna be so powerful that my computer crashed.

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. Could you hear any of that?

Stephen Drew: I didn't. I just heard Woo. And then my computer crashed.

Hamza Shaikh: I just held it down really well.

Stephen Drew: You are the G on that. No, I don't even need to do an in introduction

Hamza Shaikh: you don't need to be here.

Stephen Drew: I don't even need to be here, mark. I think Mark Zuckerberg is listening. That old Facebook Bill Gates move out of the way.

I am so excited for today that I'm so glad that I am able [00:02:00] to participate and Nick here is here. We got Sdel. He can hear us. They can hear us. Amazing. So on that note, I will try and do an introduction and let's hope I don't get kicked off. Hello, Lola. We are all here gathered today with the presenter of the presenters in the Architecture world.

But I'm gonna interview 'em anyways because you'll have to put up with me as your host today and we're gonna talk about all the AI that's going on in Architecture and drawing attention. Slight pun there to maybe something that you'll find out a bit later, but drawing attention in the digital age to Architecture.

And what do we mean by that? It's a busy world out there. How do you cut through the noise? How do you use all those to tools like mid journey? I don't know. And other stuff. I'm not the expert, but that's the point. I've got the expert here. So Hamza, welcome to the stage. How are you, sir?

Hamza Shaikh: [00:03:00] Good. Thank you so much.

Stephen Drew: Where are you? Where are you streaming from now? That is a cool looking office.

Hamza Shaikh: This is my bedroom. I,

Stephen Drew: Wow. You must be making a lot of money with ai if that's your bedroom. Gee.

Hamza Shaikh: yeah. Elevators in the back. Yeah. Easy access. No, it's this is the Genzer office. We're in London in Motown, Ganzler, London headquarters actually. Sorry, European headquarters,

Stephen Drew: Ooh,

Hamza Shaikh: but we're global obviously.

Stephen Drew: I'm really pleased you're here. So I'm gonna give a round of applause if you can hear it. And anyways, ok. So I'm gonna bring up the links because the thing crashed, but today we're all gonna talk a little bit more about a few things. So you were on here a year and a half ago, and I think at the time we were talking about the next generation of architects.

It's the next generation of the digital age and digital era. So tell me, Hamza, what have you been up to in the last year and a half for

Hamza Shaikh: Oh man. It's been a storm. It's been a storm and a half. The main things of the book. [00:04:00] So I wrote a book with RIBA, with the Royal Institute of British Architects called drawing Attention which is subtitled Architecture in the age of social media. And that is all about. Showing and giving people an insight into drawing styles from all over the world, drawing processes, trying to demystify the drawing process because during Architecture school, we all know that it's very difficult to try and find your drawing style or to even get drawing guidance.

So that's why people took to social media and people went on Instagram to go and find inspiration, save things, follow people, blah, blah, blah. And it created this weird little natural niche of people, which I found myself among for the last sort of four or five years, maybe even longer, of people who would share their drawings and share the process.

So what I decided to do was try and grab all of those guys together. You're seeing Eric Wong, for example, who's a Bartlett Prodigy student with CJ Lim, unit [00:05:00] 10. And just try get behind the scenes and understand how he does his drawings and understand his drawing philosophy. But most importantly, show.

The process behind how he does those drawings. So it became a really passionate project for me because I was able to answer the questions everyone was asking me through a book. And then the what followed that was an exhibition. So I was then offered an opportunity to showcase all of these drawing works with drawings from the drawing matter archive, which is in Somerset.

It's from Neil Hobhouse drawing Matter. And so he has original drawings from people you may have heard of, la Aldo Rossi, Cedric Price, Frank Gary.

Stephen Drew: must have cost a few pounds, right?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. I mean you might not have heard of those people, if you have,

Stephen Drew: What So did, yeah. Never heard of them. Who were they?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah so I got to [00:06:00] go and see those drawings in primary format and it was like, I was like a child in a candy shop.

But the concept of that exhibition then became, how do we combine the old and the new, and right now it's on display at the Rocker Gallery. So if you guys are in London, please head down on the 29th until the 29th of July that exhibition is running.

Stephen Drew: Oh, cool.

Hamza Shaikh: Those are the two main things, man. But there's so much going on, especially in the AI world.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm just bringing up your link now as well, so I'm gonna, because Cuz, cuz Muck Zuckerberg shut down all my links, Sam, so I'm just bringing it up. I'm bringing it up again now. So let me show everyone where you can find out all this cool stuff. Oh, okay. Wow. That's a blank screen. So I think it might be Link Tree, which is causing the drama here. For some reason, however, I've got the link here so you can check out ham's stuff and it can pop up and you can have a little look at it. But I'm just [00:07:00] gonna bring it for us too for now so

Hamza Shaikh: You can just go to my Instagram and link and,

Stephen Drew: You do pop up straight away. You know you are there. You do pop up number one. So I was actually at your exhibition in the Rocket Book galley and it was really good.

Now, one of the things I was really keen to talk to you about was that exhibition, which it seems really interesting because AI at the moment is in, it's not going away, and mid journey is there, and I think it's really, Been interesting and it's evolved even since I've seen it last year, but now we've got chat, G P T, and some people are embracing it, some people are scared of it.

Now your work embraces the old school medium as well as the new school medium. Okay. So tell me first of all why you started doing that, and then secondly, tell me how that's all going.

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah, so I'm no AI expert. At least not in the traditional sense. I'm no tech expert. I was never the grasshopper hoppers [00:08:00] scripting guy, but I've always been passionate about experimental drawing methods. That's been my thing since I was a kid. When I was a kid I would just use anything and everything to make artistic things and it was never precious to me.

I would always throw it in the bin straight after making it, and even like my family and my brother be like, you just spent like the whole day doing that drawing and you just chucked it in the bin. So process has always been the most important thing to me, not the outcome. Hence I got involved in drawing method.

So for me it's how you do the drawing, how you communicate your drawing, which is the most exciting thing. So that actually led me into ai and the reason is because AI in of itself is revolution revolutionizing the way we do our visual communication. It's revolution revolutionizing the drawing method.

The drawing process. Now you can go and. Code or prompt drawings and use it as an iterative tool, which [00:09:00] is where I'm really focused on with regards to mid journey is taking one of my drawings, running it through image source, referencing and extracting parts of that drawing and bringing it to life and breakneck speed and efficiency.

So Mid Journey is really becoming like a team of ideators working away in your mind, helping you to create your visions. So for me, yeah, that's the key. It's how do we use these innovative tools and they really are tools and I think when people sober up from this storm, they will realize that AI is not here to take your jobs and all this kind of malarkey it, it's there as a insanely powerful tool the same way the computer and the internet and social media came and were insanely powerful tools.

So it's new magic powers.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: That's the way I look at it. But we will always need to preserve and find ways to plug it in to our craft. And I would even argue that people who move away from that and [00:10:00] get lazy and try to do everything just through AI and think that it's over for us and they want to push that or pursue that, they're gonna struggle.

Cuz at the end of the day, like humans crave human ideas.

Stephen Drew: I agree. I think that it's interesting because in terms of the content here, apart from when streaming tries to kick me out, but I keep coming back the reality is you need content from humans. And I think that people worry about chat G P T replacing Architect, so they really don't see that.

That's the case because it's a tool that should be implemented and can be wielded to do results, which is what you are doing really, isn't it? And I saw a reel the other day where you ju you had that sketch before and then you've got like an expanded universe that the AI is done around one of your buildings.

However, that, that starting point came from you,

Hamza Shaikh: yeah, definitely. And then there's another argument when you really get into the prompting that actually, when you sat there, [00:11:00] Refining this paragraph of text, which is the prompts. And now by the way, prompts are becoming more nuanced and complicated and there's different vernacular forming around, codes.

It's becoming codified. You use dash I i w for image weight you use dash ar. For aspect ratio, you use dash n o for negative prompting. You can you have permutations, prefixes, and suffixes. It's getting really, it, I always thought this would happen that, there's anyone in their grammar can use it fine, but also there are people who are gonna be really advanced with it.

So that's why when I felt that, I was like, all right, I need to get advanced with it. So that's also why I offer workshops, which there's actually one workshop coming up in July. If anyone's interested to understand mid journey and how to prompt and do it in this hybrid way, just go check out the link in my bio.

There's an early bird discount on at the moment. But yeah, generally speaking it's always gonna be this hybrid method. And [00:12:00] I think at the, at what I'm really eager to do is find this is important to say, right? We're in play mode and you're in, when we're in play mode, you can't really take things too seriously.

In some ways. So like when statements are made about this is gonna do this is gonna do that that's how we, that's how we provoke and thought, provoke ideas. In the human world we test and then we make statements, and then people come and refute those statements and they make new ones.

So it's a storm right now. It really is.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, I think I think the, sometimes the perfect storms are the key for creativity. So I'll try to show you something at the end of this, but I'll talk through it now just in case I get kicked off the livestream again. But Basically I've started using bringing in G P T in, into the Architecture Social.

There's something called embeddings, which I never even heard of before, and what embeddings are. Is like pockets of information where you can store stuff and get AI to read it. Because actually chat G P T, it only goes up to [00:13:00] 2021 and it can throw out some spurious facts. However, if you plug it into your own repository of information, then it gets really interesting.

So I've started playing with that and that's something that's launched on the Architecture Social as of today. So that's what I will. Try and show in a bit, but it's very interesting. Have you hamster started playing with the text as well as the image based stuff?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. There's so much, you can create your own workflows and use various different AI softwares to, to Play experiment. And I certainly have tested what it's called, what we call it a prompt formalization, and that's what people are calling it. It's essentially where you go into G p t, you train G p t to to give you prompts for mid journey.

And you say, I want I'm gonna give you a set of parameters like emotion, ambiance environment texture, materiality composition. And you [00:14:00] say, I, using these parameters create for me a mid journey prompt that can show me a proposal for a new shopping center in Malaysia or whatever.

And then, It will start asking you maybe one or two questions about that, or it will give you a prompt with the most, so you can train it to basically engineer your prompts. And that is very powerful. And you can also do it in a way where you train it to say create a drawing set for me.

So then you have these things called permutations, which is basically these prefixes in your prompt, which you can, it's basically one prompt that can become 10 prompts. So when you press enter, it does 10 instead of one. And in that one prompt, you can even have it. Code your drawing set. So you can say an elevation a section a plan, a 3D perspective, view an axonometric.

So then when you hit enter and you've engineered this perfect prompt

You've done your concept design in one push of a button, arguably, right? So this is the thing I'm provoking and playing with a lot. Now, I will also say ethics [00:15:00] and legal caution is really needed in this, especially when you're using G P t text.

So even with what you are talking about with embedding and now a p I kind of access with G P T, people are plugging in, like you say, into their own local ecosystem. There's a lot of ethical concerns with that because g, the problem with G P T and I think anyone who's experimenting with G P T in practice be very cautious and go and speak to your legal it p people because G P T doesn't even need to ask your permission to take what you are giving it and.

Use it and spread the news. And you guys may have heard of the Samsung leaks, right? So what happened with Samsung is they were entering confidential information in the prompts that they were asking. So they were saying on the lines of this is the context of my project and I want to find out X, Y, and Z.

So they were giving that confidential information. What happened was other companies were searching for information and G P T was referencing some of [00:16:00] Samsung's information. So gdpr massive issues, especially if you're plug in with your own ecosystem and you've got emails and all these things, but also just confidentiality, project confidentiality.

So the reason I'm getting really privy to all this as well is because even in practice, I'm part of the push to understand how we can implement this.

Stephen Drew: Yeah I saw something in the News Hamster the other day, which made me laugh. And it was someone being like, I fired my solicitor to use chat G P T, and then the information it give me was wrong. And I have this sta going yeah, of course. And I think that's the scare. That could be a scary thing when if the public goes.

I don't need an Architect. I'm just gonna generate some drawings, and then it doesn't work. So I think the problems the other way around is actually that you'll always need an Architect because they get all that experience, which can't be put in G P T,

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. Now imagine this though. Now imagine you have a g a generation of architects. Maybe this is our generation and the next one [00:17:00] that are really fluent with all the AI tools.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: Now you've got an arch, a traditional Architect who knows everything about standards, right? And then you've got somebody who is a traditional Architect, but is also fluent with AI technology.

Automatically that person can become way more valuable than the other. The question is, they, what is, what does it look like? What does it feel like to have somebody who is fluent in ai And AI fluency is not necessarily it's not just knowing how to use the tools. It's knowing how to use them in a way that doesn't devalue the profession.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: And that is what I'm really, focused on, which is why I've been trying to find this new art, this new expression that is deeply human led.

Stephen Drew: I love it. I love it. While we hear, Lola has dropped in one or two comments with saying ethics and regulations around G P T are similar, our ongoing discussions, you're right. It's a hot. Point now, if anyone wants to ask [00:18:00] Hamer a question, you can do and as long as I'm in the room, I will bring it up on the screen.

Otherwise, Hamer a freestyle. When my Lewis room connection cocks out or whatever. But we keep on going though. Do you know what I wanted to say? What? Until we get Oh. Questions coming in. What about though, I think there's a case for the art form or the perseverance of what you talked about earlier, designing prompts.

Now that is a big thing and very important. Cause I use it in my business where I have grumps for certain things, this and that. A lot of the manual redundant stuff I think can be. Executed with a prompt. I'm gonna put it out there in terms of actual like jobs and when you're looking for a job, I don't think you need a cover in letter anymore.

And if you must have a cover in letter, I think that's the perfect thing for chat G P T. Just to ramp one off, when you put in the correct prompts, what do you think Hamza, for the case of designing prompts then, do you think that's an art form or do you think that's actually [00:19:00] really quick to do?

Hamza Shaikh: it's neither. And I've done it, I've done it a lot in projects, in personal work, and I've created these things I call prompt packs. And it was just, it felt like a natural thing to do to organize the, an archive, the kind of the prompts that really worked well and create that record. And what I realized at the end of doing that, like really si significant piece of work in that sense, was. I would go through this process of like simple prompts. Then they expand and become insanely complicated. And then I'd start bringing in G P T formalization, and then they become like real, like big organized sets. And then it becomes like this big mutant. And then suddenly I realize when I get to the end of my prompt journey and I'm starting to get the best results, they end up being the really simple ones.

They end up becoming the really nicely refined ones. So in that sense, it's closer to design because that's what design is. Design is, the wave of comes, you [00:20:00] start your design process, it goes really crazy and complicated, and then you refine and then boom, you've got your, so you are right to point to that as design.

I like that. But the reason I, but what I would still say is, it's a lot more accessible than arguably, than design. You know what actually it could, you could have equated to design thinking

Stephen Drew: Design. Yeah. I, problem solving isn't this this moving, this and that, and

Hamza Shaikh: A and the good thing about that is it makes it extremely accessible to people who, cuz a lot of the boundary the kind of the obstacle people have with getting into Architecture and is that, oh, I'm not good at art.

And then they end up and there's a lot of people like that in the field and they end up kind of feeling they have to default to like these production tasks. And that's for me that's a nightmare. That's hell. I hate being on on, Revit modeling tasks and things like that.

That's just not my thing. Although I can do it, I try to stay away. Is so what I think what I'm trying to say is we're pointing to is the fact that there's not gonna be job losses [00:21:00] There's gonna be new jobs that get created instead. And we're gonna see the role of the Architect or the role of Architectural designers as a whole evolve into things like you just said, prompt design, prompt engineering is what's, there's roles going out now of prompt engineering. And this is what you end up finding. That's what I mean. It's, you don't create the perfect prompt. You have to go through that process and journey and find what works. Now there's gonna be people who have tips and tricks to really streamline that and make that really really efficient.

And so like now when I get onto a project where I'm starting to use mid journey, I have a process and that's what I'm gonna be teaching on July the eighth and ninth.

Stephen Drew: And for that, people need to sign up for it. I'm gonna bring in your your link tree as well, but just a quick reminder before I ask questions that you can find Hamer shake online on Instagram. He's the one and only. You can also find him on the arctic of social, which also then points back to your stuff as well, or the link tree [00:22:00] below, which I dare not bring up because I dunno, my Google Chrome is just exploding during a live stream.

That's great, isn't there now? We do have one or two questions before we move on, which is great. There's so many that have come in. So Nikhil, as brings up the first question in Nikhil says, in terms of concept design within Architecture, if you use AI to help produce the concept design, does does that equate to your idea?

Rather than your own personal design, because AI is essentially designing for you whilst given the command of your ideas. So it sounds like the key is testing or asking, who is the ownership there? Is it because Ja Chat, G p T, or mid Journey in this case for example, generates it? Is it mid journeys or is it

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah, this is exactly what I was talk Nicole about Being careful and, what does a, an Architect who is fluent with AI look like and that Architect is somebody who can really navigate using these tools without [00:23:00] devaluing the profession, without devaluing our role. And what would devalue our role is really irresponsibly going in and typing in some prompt on G P T and then going, boom, here you go, client, here's your work.

Cause you if one, if they knew that, the client would be like why the hell am I paying you millions of pounds to do the concept design? When you've just done that, then you've basically given this perception to out the client world that architects are doing this stuff. That's why we need to be very cautious.

So this is again, why I say if we use these tools, we need to find ways of human led AI integration and expression. So that means it's not an easy way out. It's not something that, all right, we're just gonna push a button and our job's done. Come on. Do you even want to live like that?

Do you wanna just, you wanna be on a beach all day pushing, enter every day. Maybe some people are like that. I, that's not me. I want to be able to, do some actual work. So with that in mind, what does that new work look like? That work does look like, [00:24:00] It's nuanced.

We're still finding out what that is and what that feels like. Again I will be touching on that deeply in my workshop. I will be, I also try to experiment and tease out what this new AI workflow looks like in on my Instagram through the drawings I do. And one way I do that is I've done a drawing where I literally do the digital collage on mid journey.

And that in of itself is a very human involved process because it takes sometimes 12, 13 hours to come up with the right prompt. And then I then take and photo collage it and then I photo transfer it onto a piece of paper and then I embellish it with charcoal. And, but what was the point of all that?

It was an experiment and what it revealed to me is that AI can very effectively make your process more efficient. It can make your process more powerful,

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: but it doesn't necessarily shorten your process. It can. And maybe it should, especially in logistical tasks, procedural tasks where you need [00:25:00] to create an Excel file to simplify things there.

AI revolution 100%. Let's press enter on that. When it comes to design and it comes to these creative outlets that, human crave human creativity, then we can't let that become like this super fast, supercharged process. To the extent where, you know, because then by the way, the end result of that anyway is commodification of design.

There people will, what I'm trying to say is countercultures would emerge. If everybody is just using AI to do stuff, purely ai, then every design will become the same. And the proof of that is actually what happened when Mid Journey first launched. When Mid Journey first launched, everybody who used AI was for some reason prompting Zaha Hadid stuff.

So if you guys were any early users of Mid Journey, every time you did an Architectural visual in mid Gurney, you would see parametric, fabric like drawings. So [00:26:00] I think we're safe, is what I'm trying to say, but we just need to be more intentional.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, no, I agree with you and Jason. It's good question Quiel. It is an interesting question. Do you know what though? It reminds me what my tutor used to talk about. If you put something through Revit, if you let the software dictate what the outcome it, buildings start to look like they're generated by Revit because Revit

Hamza Shaikh: and that's happened. You can walk around certain parts of London and see, you are in Revit City and that will, we have a lag obviously, so even the work that, that's being built today we'll see that people do notice that

Stephen Drew: yeah, exactly.

Hamza Shaikh: is, again, this is again why I love process and mediums because that's what dictates the built world as well.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. I hear you. HIL says, thanks for that, and Nikhil stick around. I love it. Tobias says, hello. My goodness. Everyone's chipping in. It's great because my half my computer's not working, then the audience is helping me. Lola, is Lola a solicitor? I wonder. [00:27:00] Lola asks a very interesting question which I'm not sure you have the answer to.

I'm not sure I have the answer to, but we'll chip away at it.

Hamza Shaikh: No, I do in.

Stephen Drew: even better. Lola asks for our audio listeners who has the legal and contractual ownership of material generated by AI Hamza, what do you think?

Hamza Shaikh: It is a brilliant question. This is the kind of question we all have to start asking as well when you're using these tools, especially in the practice context. I said I could answer it, I can answer it to some degree cuz I'm not a lawyer. But let's just talk specifically about Mid Journey, for example.

So Mid Journeys, terms and conditions are that at least the last time I saw them was that, you need a commercial license and there's a special licensing structure for that. Generally, if you're a practice, you need to look for commercial options for your licensing. Never go into a so your practice will already be following this.

Rule of thumb, when there's a commercial licensing option, then you will have a level of protection, which is standard for [00:28:00] commercial practices, and that is that the work belongs to you, right? So when you're doing mid journey stuff with a commercial license, then by the way, I say all of this with a disclaimer, do your own research.

Stephen Drew: of course.

Hamza Shaikh: here, I'm not giving you

Stephen Drew: You can't sue you after this. This is just anecdotal. Anecdotal advice. Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: thank you. I'll say it too. This is anecdotal advice. Do your own research. But the point is you can't be generating work like without using the commercial licensing or any license that doesn't allow for commercial usage.

And saying that it's your work, right? There's so many nuances to this, right? If you're, by the way, if you post anything on Instagram, generally speaking, it doesn't go under copyright issues. From what I know on Instagram you're not gonna get, cuz Instagram's got a strange way of doing it.

But obviously if you're selling the work as your own work, you're in trouble, right? But the thing with the safest thing you could do [00:29:00] is make sure you have a commercial license. Make sure you are legally following the right membership. So that basically it protects you to, to one, to some degree, but then you need to be doubly sure.

This is my advice and this is very safe. So you can quote me on this. I would still advise people to make sure that they alter the work. So when you do the AI work and you've got your outcome, if you're ever gonna use that in a commercial sense, Regardless of what the com, the commercial licensing allows you to do, cuz I think some licenses allow you to just say that prompt outcome is your work.

I would still advise you, especially if you wanna save our profession and our value, do something to that drawing. Work into it. Hybridize it. This is again why I talk about hybrid AI workflows. It's about you bringing pen in and mixing the mediums. Taking that, bringing into Photoshop, editing it, making it more intentional.

Don't be lazy, this is a tool, it's [00:30:00] not a means to an end.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. No I agree with you and I think that's really well said. I just tried the note to, on a flip note, I used to use mid journey last year to generate thumbnails because you can get sued for using an image without permission or find, and it can get precarious when you think, oh, this building's a, this picture's a of an Architecture practice.

Doesn't matter. About who who's made the picture, owns the copyright. So I've actually used it the opposite way. So that I do not get sued, and I'm pretty sure exactly what you said, I read into it. And the Architecture Social as it's less than a certain size. Can you use them commercially Pretty much easily.

I think the only tricky bit is if you then start selling it, but a thumbnail on the website is no drama,

Hamza Shaikh: yeah. Look, this is, again, I'm not gonna say, I'm not gonna give like a blanket answer for this. This is why I said check the terms and conditions, but if there's a commercial licensing structure that. Lola [00:31:00] is the, that's your starting point. Make sure you have that. If you ever use anything for commercial use, selling it to a client, you need to have a commercial license.

And all companies and softwares know that. They'll always try to cater for that. It's important to know the context as well though, cuz what Steven's saying is important, right? Like the, these things, mid journey Dali, stable diffusion, these things are called diffusion models. Generative AI diffusion models.

Now I don't wanna go so deep into it, but like I had a panel discussion with some leaders in the AI space and we discussed the idea that. AI isn't artificial, nor is it intelligent AI is this kind of anthropomorphized version of new, a new technology. So we like to romanticize and glamorize AI as ai, this is crazy.

Movies like that do that, but in reality, it's not artificial and nor is it intelligent. I'm quoting Neil Lecher. He says it's synthetic, not artificial, and it's information [00:32:00] processing, not intelligence. So you should really be calling it s i l, synthetic info s i p, synthetic information processing.

And what's the point of me saying this? The point is, what we're trying to say is it's a tool.

Stephen Drew: Yeah,

Hamza Shaikh: a tool that processes information insanely powerful tool. So by that standard as well, it, it should dictate the way you use it. So as a tool, use it as a tool.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. And just to add a quick note, I think people, especially when they think of ai. As the, in Architecture, they tend to focus on mid journey and the images and stuff. Whereas actually I think in terms of Architecture as a business, the it, we've yet to see how it can fully optimize stuff. I use it day to day doing all the mundane stuff.

It's really useful. And there's a, I think there's a good argument for it, freeing up the time for an Architect to do design, actually the opposite.

Hamza Shaikh: Th this is again, another great point because like, where does the AI ecosystem fit into, say, the RIBA stages of work? [00:33:00] Diffusion models, which we were talking about Mid journey Darley, stable diffusion there's many more even now they're plugging into with SketchUp and Rhino and rev is one called Veras, which is amazing tool.

And that, and it's, that's like a diffusion model that you can directly plug into your software works in the same way, which is, it takes a massive data set of images in the, on the web. And this is where I actually Mid Journey for Context has had is still going through class action lawsuits with shutter Stock and Getty

Stephen Drew: Oh really?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah they're trying to sue me

Stephen Drew: Those dinosaurs, they're the ones that come. I hate that stuck. Sorry.

Hamza Shaikh: this is the thing new laws need to be written around these things because it's new territory and it's an ongoing legal case and the mid journey seem to be very confident and continue to make updates.

So I think the point is, it's unknown territory, but gen like this is again, why you should try and be as safe as you can and alter the images. [00:34:00] Use this as a tool. It's Google on steroids. It's Pinterest on steroids. But what do you do when you get a Google image and you're trying to make a collar like you work into it?

You wouldn't just take a Google image, put it on an InDesign and say, here you go, client, here's your work.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. No I agree with you. And the other thing, cuz I'm gonna bring up one or two questions in a bit, but I also think that once you've gotten a QI for mid journey and once you've got the QI for chat, G P t, I can smell it a mile off. I can smell it a mile off. And actually I think it goes back then to what you're saying about altering it.

Like to me, her mid journey image just. As is. I can see it as mid journey. It's getting more convincing now. But you remember Hamza, when we were playing before, it couldn't really do people. Now he's starting to do people a bit better, but still

Hamza Shaikh: today. Even today you can see the alien fingers, but it will get to a point, Steven, where we really will never be able to tell the difference,

Stephen Drew: That is that will be a scary day. Even, I think, but then that kind of has an argument for [00:35:00] then you insert your sureness, say quiet your personalization to bring it back to something which is more convincing. I know what you mean though, cuz it's basically do you remember CGI in movies 10, 15 years ago?

And you'd be like, it's a bit naf. I know that dinosaur's not real, but whatever. And now CGIs getting to a point where I'm like is that real or not? And I think that's gonna happen here, isn't it?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah, it's true. It's scary in the sense that you are you're gonna always have people who are trying to I say this to people all the time, like there, there's a group of nerds, an army of nerds who are working in Silicon Valley and all, all over the world, every single second of the day to innovate and push this technology as far as it can go.

And you can never stop that. So with that in mind, how do you adapt? So I would say the way we adapt is we become experts with these tools, and then we find ways to build maybe new usps [00:36:00] to evolve our usps, our unique selling points, our value propositions. And again, I just make this simple argument at the end of the day, like people don't see Architect as like a business.

They think it's like this social and it is, right? We have this social responsibility, but people are often, they think that, Architecture is, it just emerges outta nowhere. No, it's always a, there's always a commercial kind of viability to it. It doesn't exist without commercial VI viability.

So in that sense, Architecture is a transaction, right? How are you selling your product? At the end of the day, if you have somebody who's selling a product who's not using these tools at the forefront, they're not gonna be as appealing as somebody who is. I will, I, this is again, how I always picture. I'm not against ai, am far from it, but I'm also very cautious about it, and that's why I have my Instagram, because with the Instagram I can experiment and test and play, but then at work it's about being as responsible as possible.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. From well said. We've got one or two more. [00:37:00] Questions in this world, I think clearly every, it's on everyone's mind. Then we can loop back to the book, which is great. And I want to remind people that, you're getting a slice of the Hamza world here in this 45 minutes to an hour. But if you really wanna pick his brain, the best way is to do it on the course.

And I'm a big believer in this well, That, in those places, especially if you participate and you sign up and you get your ticket or whatever, you're gonna get all that juicy info. But in the short term you can put a little comment here. So Hamza, I'm gonna bring up the link again, but let's just remind people about your event really quickly.

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. Thanks man. Look, if you guys go to my Instagram and you go to the Lincoln Bio, there's an AI workshop I'm holding, and Stephen is completely right, like I've never done a full on workshop. This is a two day workshop and if anyone felt like they missed the AI train, it's not too late.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: This is why I did this workshop because there are people saying I, I've never, I feel like I [00:38:00] missed the train. I dunno how to use it, and now it's gone too far. I still say this time, But it will get away from you if we don't jump on now. And I'm not doing this as some sort of sales pitch. I've literally done this in response to the endless messages I've been getting.

So I'm trying to do a two day intense workshop of teaching the, giving a full beginner to advance Mid Journey workshop. And what's cool about it is you can bring you I'm asking people to make sure they bring a drawing with them, a drawing or a photograph of a model. Bring something you've done that you are really proud of, bring that to the workshop.

And what we're gonna do is create a entire portfolio of work stemming from that one drawing of bringing that visual to life in ways you won't even imagine. Unless you've used it, then you can imagine. And it'll be the fastest portfolio you ever made. And by the end of it, you will know how to use mid journey in an advanced way as well, asm, understanding the responsibility that comes with [00:39:00] it.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I brought up the Instagram. Now I'm gonna try it again in five, 10 minutes, but I'm just bracing myself. Cause at the end, if I cut off again, then you can have a giggle about it. However, In the short term, we have one or two more questions because this is just one of these hot topics, isn't it?

So ISHKA says, hi. How do you think Architecture firms will adopt AI as part of their general design process? Do you have any predictions, Hamza, or

Hamza Shaikh: yeah. I can tell you exactly what's gonna happen cuz it's already happening. There'll be you could say like a low level adoption and that low level adoption is mass adoption, and that's general AI tools, the commodified tools. Microsoft copilot is, if you Google copilot, you'll see that's the new that, that is the new I forget the term, that's the next version of Microsoft.

So every computer is gonna have AI integrated, intuit, generative AI integrated Intuit l m, they call it latent [00:40:00] language models. I might, my brain's not working right right now. LA latent or large language models,

Stephen Drew: They're doing well. You're doing

A break.

Hamza Shaikh: L M is basically gonna become commodified.

Every single platform you've seen it, Photoshop just did it.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Amazing.

Hamza Shaikh: have plugged in live diffusion models into their software. It's incredible, right? So that's gonna happen everywhere. So we can't avoid that. It's happening now with regards to Craft, and this is why I call it AI craft. That is where I'm really interested in.

And I think that's gonna be much more of a specialized and nuanced approach. You're gonna see people maybe like myself, who are gonna be specialized in knowing how to combine human craft and the AI tools. And that in of itself might become the next evolution of creative interface at work. And I'm certainly working on ways that we can amplify and catalyze [00:41:00] our work, our design process, here even with tools in a way that, like I said, is human led.

Now that in, like I said, that's much more specialized, so you won't see every firm adopting that technique. You will see those really annoying firms and they've already started who will use AI for the sake of ai, who will use AI in a way that just makes the Gives them short term returns that are insane because they can complete a building from beginning to end in, in, I don't know, three months.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: AI will allow for that. But I still think those people in the long term are gonna suffer because they're gonna devalue themselves. They're gonna devalue the profession because of people like that. We're also gonna have to adapt our business and value proposition, and we're gonna have to become, I think, much more multidisciplinary as creative problem solvers, and therefore our roles are gonna adapt as well.

So there's big changes going on. True revolution in that sense with regards to design and creativity. And I [00:42:00] think that's the way firms will adopt ai. There'll be a low level general adoption, and then there'll be a group of firms who are all out ai fanatics. And there will also be firms who are counterculture, who will be completely un AI ide and they will actually have a good share of the market because I think counterculture is also gonna become very important and very widespread People who go we don't want any ai, we want pure craft.

Stephen Drew: I agree with you. I think, you talked, you touched upon Microsoft copilot, which I think is gonna be amazing, but also could potentially remove personality from the process. Microsoft copilot, imagine that plugged in with Outlook, and then you are emailing someone who's also using copilot. So you are having an AI talk of an AI talk.

And then so you send me something going. Generate a response to Steve's telling him to sort his computer out in a polite manner, which isn't too, and then I [00:43:00] go, oh, here we go. Generate. So it's got the potential for that. However, on the other hand, All these little emails and all this stuff, you know what?

You haven't got the brain capacity to reply to someone and you can't be bared, or you wanna politely tell 'em that you wanna stop seeing their spam or whatever the heck, it's gonna be amazing. So I think that Microsoft. It's gonna change office space forever. Because how often, when you get into professional practice, the, yes, you're gonna be using Excel.

Yes. Hopefully like yourself, you'll be drawing. But I know architects use Excel and Outlook, especially if you're a project Architect. So it's gonna change the space, isn't it?

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah, it's un unavoidable. I would also hope and imagine that Microsoft are also moving in a human led AI integration manner. I'm sure they've worked ways in I haven't been able to, to test the software yet, but I'm sure they've got ways to make sure that it's not just a click of a button and it's all done.[00:44:00]

Again, it's about our new roles. The best way I, the best example I saw of how you summarize this is our roles are moving from creator to curator.

So now we're not necessarily there slaving away and doing the iterations and, we would do that too. We will do that. We will definitely do that.

We won't do it as much. What we'll be doing much more of is curating, organizing and when you use Mid Journey, for example, so get a good example cuz you're there mainly selecting images. And the senior director role InDesign is very much a curator. They'll do a sketch, they'll give it to the army of design interns, they'll develop it, and the design director will go, yeah, that's good.

Let's iterate that. Go on call. So we all will get to become design directors in that sense. I think it's an exciting future. I think there's another trope that people think that in Architecture, not everyone can be creative. The business doesn't allow for every single person in the firm to be creative.

Someone has to do the hard grit work, right? And. [00:45:00] It's easy to say, yeah, of course that's the world, that's the way that life works. But just, I've been questioning that more and I wonder what a world would look like if you walk into an Architecture firm and everyone is a almost a design director.

Sounds like a nightmare in some ways.

But at the same time, if you think about it from a commercial sense, it's actually, it seems quite viable to me. It seems quite an exciting thing to me. We might see mid-sized, low size firms operating like foster level, Gensler level, which then raises questions of how do we function, Gensler, cuz we're huge with the world's biggest firm.

We might break up who know, who knows

Stephen Drew: Who knows well, but maybe if everyone's a design director, it's a chance we can raise our fees in the industry. So maybe AI is the

Hamza Shaikh: Honestly, I do. This is again, why, like you you'll know this Stephen. Like I could have easily have devoted my energy and my life in the last sort of like decade or so to,

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: Standing up [00:46:00] for students' rights. And this, I'm very passionate about that. But what actually, I think the root of all, a lot of the problems we see in our profession from underpay to overwork, to devalued profession, to students stress at university and damaging cultures and blah, blah, I think the root of it is actually in the architect's value being in absolute crisis.

So that's why I love and focus on innovation because that's where I think the root the solution to the root of our problems lies.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, said. Listen, I've got you for a few more minutes. We have got a few questions, but I don't wanna get you, sack because the AI

Hamza Shaikh: No. I've got 20 minutes max

Stephen Drew: oh, okay. Okay. I was worried cuz I don't want to get you sacked. The AI algorithms aren't as good enough to do your job just yet, don't worry. I'm gonna bring up one or two more questions, Hamza if you are happy with that.

Hamza Shaikh: Yeah. Go for it.

Stephen Drew: Okay. So Mr. Andy Shaw, the Shaw. As I [00:47:00] refer to Andy says how do you think universities should be handling the emergence of AI design tools? So is there a resistance? I remember there was a resistance when I studied to you shouldn't be on the computers too much.

You need to hand draw. But what do you think, ham? Is there a resistance or

Hamza Shaikh: So here's what I know. Here's what I know cuz I, again, in the panel talk that I organized with leaders in the field, I also brought in student and a very amazing student, Kat Stevens, who's been very active in the AI space and thought leadership. But she's still a student and I brought her in because I needed to get the student perspective.

So it was really good to get that. And she's told us, and I know again from students and professors as well, is professors don't know. Anything about this? Generally speaking, they're busy, right? They don't have time to experiment. Usually they experiment through their students but they don't know, right?

The students know more than them about these technologies, which, [00:48:00] you know, at the end of the day that's usually the case cuz generational gap anyway in technology fluency. But what's interesting is universities, at least from my understanding, went from hell no. Stay away from that to now being like I wonder if we can use it in a nuanced way.

And I'm not saying this to blow my own trumpet, but I think universities should be using it the way I'm using it in I, I'd scale. So the way I use it, as I said, is I experiment and I try to tease out potential value propositions through finding new mediums and new integrations and new hybrid workflows.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: They are, universities are doing that.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: They are doing that. And they should continue to do that. And I'm really excited to see the work, the cohort that's graduating soon as have just graduated in the next sort of like few weeks even. I'm excited to see their work because they will have been, some of them will have been lost in the AI world and students come out and they revitalize the work, the working landscape with their [00:49:00] insane ideas, amazing ideas.

And I think that has already taken hold In universities, students are experiment. They're using their degree. I would say use your degrees to experiment and become AI specialists. Why not? At the end of the day we're going to see, I think universities drive the change with regards to the tool development.

And I think the practices, and when I say tool development, I think there's distinction, right? In AI is tool development and there's craft development in the way I'm looking at it, right? So there's how you can create the right tool. So let's say. We, you plug in your own data sets and university professors will be prompting this for sure.

We'll be provoking students to say, okay, don't just use AI for the sake of it. Why don't you create your own script where you use your own data sets and bring in your own image sources and then you create this new way of using ai. Yeah. We don't have time to do that in practice. So we need students to do that and then go here.

Look, [00:50:00] I experimented with it. And that's, by the way, that's again, that's the value of pedagogy, that's the value of university. They can be the ex experimental army of people. In in, in practice we have the benefit of being with the clients. So we can then go, okay, we're using these innovative tools in these ways and this is what the clients think of it.

So that's why universities in practice need to be working in that kind of, really in that fluent in interchange.

Stephen Drew: Answered. My goodness. This is easy for me. I'm an autopilot. You're the host and the guest and the expert. Wow. Listen, we got one or two more really quick questions. Lola, earlier I teased Lola, I said, are you a solicitor? And Lola says, I'm not. I'm just, I asking a question because about, copyright and material generator because, She's debating the role of G P T in their academic works by students and it's not straightforward.

If a student generates work, is it plagiarism or is it just helping? How much help is too much help. So it's [00:51:00] building on what you said earlier, experimentation in uni, all that stuff, how it fits in. But where, in your opinion maybe is the line then the ham of enough, too much I think.

For me, it would be just whacking up the mid June. He pro drawing and being like, this is my project. Probably wouldn't stack up because it's not a robust project. But wh where do you think the line is, or maybe there isn't a line on when it gets to plagiarism?

Hamza Shaikh: I think it's really interesting to look at it from the point of let's say examination, right? So examination in of itself is changing. How do you examine a person, right? Because now you know, now we know that there are tools like these that are commodified. Someone can go and do an entire essay with G B T.

So what is gonna become more, and I said this from the start, like now what's gonna end up happening is vi's interviews are gonna become way more important than written examinations because how can you tell if somebody [00:52:00] wrote the essay, interview them,

Sit them down and be like, alright, forget your essay.

Tell me about this. And. Worst case scenario, they memorize their G P T script and they're able to read it off to you. Even in that sense, they have learned something, maybe arguably service level. So that's still good. So vibes in an interview. So I think in the same way, like if you're designing something and now the intention, the story, the reason you curated it in that way becomes more important rather than the outcome.

So beautiful imagery is commodified in the same way. Knowledge has been commodified. We won't look at sexy images and be amazed anymore. We won't look at. Knowledge and be amazed anymore. We're gonna look at the process and be amazed. We're gonna look at the ideas and the intention and be amazed. So this is what I mean about counterculture.

This is what I mean about our value proposition. Changing the way in which we assess [00:53:00] value has now been changed. So in the context of a student who is using G P T, let's put it into context. If you write your essay and you submit it to your professor, they're not gonna read that and be like, brilliant essay young man, knowing that there's G P T around, they'll go okay, tell me about this, tell me more about it.

So I, to answer the question, which is is it plagiarism? There's a blurred line now with regards to that. There's co curation, there's co-authoring, like I said we're hybridizing things from mid journey. And you can also I'll be honest with you I've tested writing articles with G P T as assistants and it's, but bloody useful.

Is that plagiarism? I would say no, because the what? Because the question always comes down to what did you do with the outcome?

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: And what I did with the outcome is the same thing I do with the drawings. I hybridize it and I actually believe G P T in its on its own won't write as good as I write, [00:54:00] but I won't write as good as I would if I had G P T.

So we've actually found something that's better than both of us

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Hamza Shaikh: and it's actually led by us. And that's a good sign.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, and I'll build upon that really quickly because like with the Architecture Social, it's great because now starting to build up a team, it's still a very small team though. And if I get hit by the bus right now, the Architecture Social I don't think will survive because I need to be there.

However, because I'm time poor, hams like you get in, chat G P T to do certain things is really useful, but it still requires a lot of direction from me. So I think. I think that's my view on it is like it enables me to do other stuff. With the can Chatt, G B T run the Architecture Social if I get hit by a bus?

No. I think it's useful, and I'll be honest, I use it for just the mundane stuff. Relisting, a YouTube video I've done before getting, or sometimes I use it for grammar or flashing out something better. [00:55:00] I put in the core thing of the bio, and then I run it through that and I'm like, that's better than what I would say it.

So let's use that,

Hamza Shaikh: yeah, a hundred percent. And I think it's important for the, for, to clarify as well that we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about the logistics tasks that are, logistics and then we've got creativity. Both of those things are very different. Creativity in of itself requires judgment.

You one, it was, it's not creative unless someone thinks it's creative. It's not designed unless someone likes it. So there's a, inherently with creativity, there's a level of judgment involved in it. Now, what I was talking about before is that level of judgment is now evolving. It's not about asking what now, it's about asking why and how.

That's the new creative paradigm with the logistics. No one gives a shit if it gets the job done quick. If it gets the job done quick and powerfully and efficiently, it's good to go.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. It's, I think anything to support the creative endeavors [00:56:00] and to keep you doing that should be embraced. So I think the back of house of an Architecture practice is a prime candidate for using automation and AI to make things faster,

Hamza Shaikh: yep.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna give you a BRE now from all those questions. I think that's a good segue to wind down now if Yeah, I can. I think we've covered a lot of ground. Let's loop quickly back Hamer to the start. When I was flourishing to get on and you were driving the podcast, I asked you about your book and I asked you about what's coming up.

So let's remind everyone and I'll try to bring the book up if I crash. Just keep talking about the book and talk about your your thing. But tell me about the book, first of all.

Hamza Shaikh: the book I mentioned earlier that the book is a. It has two things, right? There's two main intentions of this. One is it's a drawing guide and a non-prescriptive drawing guide. So you can go through the [00:57:00] book, see 18 different people, amazing people's works, and understand why they did it, how they did it, interesting.

And also understand what they did. And you can see the process and that's never been done before. As far as I'm I know especially not with RIBA. So to create an actual non-prescriptive drawing guide that was intention, and I'm happy to say we did that and people are already benefiting from it.

My hope is that this will be in every university and students will look at it as a evergreen drawing resource and a tool for inspiration. If you get creative block, you can go pick up a book. The other thing the book is doing is making the statement on the new age of social media and why the hell we talking about social media?

But the point is, social media has had a massive impact on the way drawings look, on the way we communicate, on the way we use mediums and tools. Everything is digital mainly and what effect that's having and also why that happened in the context of our history. So looking [00:58:00] back, you can see the early chapters.

We talk about Instagram as the new interface, and that's written by the esteemed Perry Culper in the States who's the godfather of drawing really. And it was an honor to have his contribution. And prior to that, there's a chap, which I wrote drawing then and now is drawing parallels. And that is looking in the context from the seventies, how people in the seventies had the same bug, the same d n a, to do a drawing and show the world, and we still do that. We just have, we don't do it through print, we do it through pixels. And then the first chapter is just saying, why the hell is there a need for this book in the first place?

Stephen Drew: I think it's a great book. It's actually one that now I've seen the images. I'll confess I've been too busy to see everything in there, but now I've seen it. This is actually to me, For me, it will have to be a coffee book table because it's beautiful images and my attention span is terrible. But for someone who's actually got a bit more capacity than me, this looks like an [00:59:00] amazing book and they should actually go through it.

So where can they find this book cams if people want to pick it up?

Hamza Shaikh: You can find it on the RIBA Bookshop or Amazon, and to be honest, like every bookstore, to be honest. But I would say try get it from one of the first two. And if you're getting it from Amazon, please leave a nice review if you liked it.

Stephen Drew: yes. Leave a blooming review. That sounds good to me. Now, if the book is like a taster, but if people want to have your time, which is valuable in person and drill down and questions in a live q and a workshop shop, where, how can they do, how can they get those last tickets hands?

Amazon.

Hamza Shaikh: There's plenty of tickets available at the moment, but there's the, there's limited early bird tickets for the AI workshop. So this is a really, like I said, I think this is a really important time. And therefore that's why I've chosen to do it at this time. So during the summer, one weekend [01:00:00] in depth, understand everything there is with regards to mid journey and how you can use it in the Architectural context and art in general in a way that I think will make you stand out in the future.

Because the way I'm trying to build and use this and create value is as a hybrid tool, and that is our future. So if you're interested, you go to the link in my bio on Instagram. I have this significant discount on the earlier bird tickets, but there's not many remaining.

Stephen Drew: Ooh. You gotta be, you gotta be in it to win it or log on and have a look. Now, if

Hamza Shaikh: And if you're at uni. If you're at uni and you want to do it and you haven't got 89 quid to spare, tell your uni to pay for it. And if you want me to help to convince them, send me a message and I'll try and help.

Stephen Drew: I agree. And do you know what a quick note I used to be, especially when I was a student dead set. I gained spending on stuff and part of it was me trying to be frugal. But what I've come to realize in my late years, 35, 36, that you have [01:01:00] to invest in yourself. And actually 90 quid I think is not a lot for the valuable information cause it saves you time.

And and I really recommend it. And also, As an industry, as architects, how can we command high fees, all this stuff with clients if we're not prepared to spend money to invest in ourselves. So I think it's a reciprocal problem and that EQU is probably not gonna be a lot. So we need to talk about, investing in ourselves.

And

Hamza Shaikh: Hell yeah.

Stephen Drew: that's why I really think it's really worth it, especially if you can get the early bird thing. So now, if people have missed this, And they watch the replay and there might be an event coming up in the future, but Hamza, where can they follow you and keep up to date with your stuff?

Hamza Shaikh: Instagram. Instagram. LinkedIn. LinkedIn. And please, if you're in London, come to the Rocker London Gallery on the 7th of June because there's gonna be a crazy event, a film screening, a documentary that [01:02:00] was made following the journey of curating the exhibition. It's unbelievable.

It's like a Netflix style thing. Someone followed me with a camera for the last year and it's become like this weird like Netflix movie thing. So I'd love to see you there, Steven. I know you're trying to

Stephen Drew: I've booked a ticket

Hamza Shaikh: man. That's free. And that's free. So that's, and they'll also be, Six or seven of the contributors from the booking exhibition there.

So that's incredible. And then on the eighth, if anybody is wanting to see me two days in a row come to Westminster University where you can get a full in-depth talk on how the book came about and deeper aspects about our value in the future.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Nice.

Hamza Shaikh: again, Lincoln Bio. Lincoln bio, everything's there.

Stephen Drew: Thank you so much. I,

Hamza Shaikh: Thank you mate. I think what you're doing is so important and the fact that you've done it so consistently and like it's growing, those lights are getting brighter and metaphorically, like honestly, like

Stephen Drew: lights are getting brighter.

Hamza Shaikh: you are the David Letterman of [01:03:00] Architecture,

Stephen Drew: Oh my goodness. Don't tell my partner

Hamza Shaikh: and I'm gonna be pushing that.

Stephen Drew: I appreciate it. I I'm gonna say thank you for being the host and being a good sport and also having a nice conversation. I'm gonna end the livestream now. You need to get back to the office, Hamza and everyone, I will see you later.

I'll end the livestream now. Take care everyone. Bye.

Hamza Shaikh: Take care.