zina baker retrofits wadi rum desert caves with modern dwellings

zina baker co-creates with ai design tool midjourney

Architectural designer Zina Baker has long experimented with digital explorations in the architecture and urban design spheres. Taking her structural visualizations into the digital realm and taking on emerging AI design technologies as co-creators, she conjures up conceptual dreamscapes that retrofit the cavernous interiors of the Wadi Rum desert’s magnificent rocky canyons with surreal dwellings.

Using Midjourney, the designer explores how AI can emulate different visual languages based on precedent images and text-based prompts of a characteristic visual style. The series recreates Baker’s preliminary rendering of a retrofitted cave to generate an extended body of work that transforms the sandy landscape and its rock formations into modern living spaces. Inside, the aesthetic and visual language draws on the interiors of Palais Bulles designed by architect Antii Lovag, and later renovated by architect Odile Decq.

Midjourney reinterpretation of the artist’s retrofitted cave in Wadi Rum | all images by Zina Baker

retrofitting cavernous landscapes with surreal dwellings

The series arises from the designer’s fascination for ‘dreamscape’ architecture and interior design which are becoming increasingly popularized, in parallel to the development of technologies allowing creatives to visualize their concepts in new ways. Inspired by the way many have begun to unite these two advancements, particularly facilitated by the integration of AI in design, Zina Baker sought to create surreal architectural renderings of modern homes nestled within caves in Wadi Rum. ‘As I was working on the project, there were online floods of architects and designers experimenting with art generated by AI prompting platforms and it piqued my curiosity to see if I can produce the design of mine using… Midjourney,’ notes Baker.

The series began with an image Baker developed herself. Then, as an additional exploration tangential on the idea of the evolving tools at designers’ disposal, the designer further explored how AI could respond to the precedent image based on text prompts. The outputs generated various iterations that encapsulate her style and vision with precision. Further revealing a process of co-creation, various images in the series reveal a collaboration between the outputs of the AI program and the final refining touches of the designer.

the original digital concept created by Zina Baker

Midjourney iteration

the original aesthetic and visual language draws on the interiors of Palais Bulles

co-created hybrid design

Midjourney reinterpretations

project info:

name: Retrofitted Cave in the Canyons of Wadi Rum
designer: Zina Baker

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edited by: ravail khan | designboom