As cities across Australia continue to grapple with rising demand, tighter development constraints and increasing pressure to deliver more liveable urban environments, artificial intelligence is rapidly emerging as one of the most disruptive forces in the built environment.
Yet according to smart cities expert and architect Matthias Hollwich, Founder and Principal of HWKN Architecture, many in real estate are still underestimating just how fundamentally AI is reshaping the way cities are imagined, designed and delivered.
Working at the intersection of architecture, technology and culture, Matthias brings a perspective that blends design thinking with commercial awareness, an increasingly important combination as development decisions become more data-driven and less intuition-led.
He says AI is not simply an incremental tool, but a structural shift comparable to major architectural movements of the past.
AI as a generational shift in design thinking
For Matthias, the impact of AI extends well beyond efficiency or workflow improvements. It is already reshaping how architects think about creativity itself.
“I believe that AI is one of the most radical changes that is happening in the world for decades, and I sometimes refer to it that we are now at the same time when modernism really emerged within the world, with Bauhaus for example, in Germany, because it touches everything, right?
“It touches the way how we search, the way how we research, and also how we design, and it’s a very interesting kind process and a very interesting future we’re getting into, and AI has so many different potentials.”
Specifically for real estate professionals, he says the shift is significant. AI is no longer confined to optimisation tools, it is influencing how ideas are formed at the earliest stages of feasibility and design. Recognising this change will influence how agents position, pitch, and sell developments.
From intuition to data-led development decisions
One of the most immediate impacts of AI is in how projects are assessed, from site selection through to design optimisation and positioning.
Matthias says this is already changing how architects and developers operate in practice.
“It’s really the question, how do we apply it, right?
“We can look differently at markets, we can look differently at positioning, we can also look differently at design, and what I’m very excited about is that we can combine research with design so that actually the design becomes a little bit independent from just opinions and it’s more hack based.”
Rethinking what ‘good design’ means
Beyond efficiency, Matthias believes AI is changing how creative problems are framed.
“The novel thing about AI-driven design is asking the right questions, and we as designers have the tendency to ask different questions than maybe if you do something more rational, like if you’re banker, it’s A and B and C is a number. In architecture, A and B sometimes is D … it could be really interesting and inspiring.
“So what I would take away from us designers in the use of AI, to use a little bit more the experiential nature that we have, but also calibrate the outcome differently because in the end a lot of things are human-centred and we want to understand humans and use AI to get our products and our environments closer to it.”
For real estate practitioners, he suggests that future value creation will be shaped less by efficiency or yield, and more by how effectively developments respond to human behaviour, experience, and the way people actually live and use spaces.
Matthias’ key message to property leaders is that AI outcomes are not neutral, they reflect the intent of those who apply them.
“What I hope the audience takes away is that we have a choice to make. That one choice is AI to be used for efficiency and the rational, and the other one is to actually increase the quality of life and the quality of our environments.
“And that is something where we are now part of the process. It’s not just happening to us. We are actually are the directors and the conductors in the process. But that also means that we have to get very involved in it. We have to engage with the tech companies,” he says.
“We have to maybe come up with our own AI applications to make sure that it goes into the right direction. So for me, this is a call for action, embrace it, explore with it, and direct it into the right direction.”
This exclusive interview with Matthias Hollwich for Elite Agent was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.