Assistant Professor
Daniel Koehler, PhD is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Board of Directors of ACADIA. He leads the Lab for Environmental Design Strategies (lab‑eds) with research sites in Austin, Shenzhen and Innsbruck, focusing on Generative AI, environmental performance and architectural typology. Formerly a researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and the University of Innsbruck, he completed his doctorate on part‑to‑whole methodologies, later published as The Mereological City (transcript / Columbia UP, 2016), now a standard reference on mereology in modernism. Koehler’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Centre Pompidou, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and in Prague, Milan, Montreal, London and Austin. He consults for computational‑design startups such as Sengine AI. His recent book Compositional Intelligence (Routledge) positions Generative AI as an intellectual partner for rethinking architectural typology across scales.
EDUCATION
- B.Sc. Architecture, University of Dortmund
- Master in Architecture, University of Applied Arts - Studio Hadid, Vienna, Austria
- Ph.D. in Architecture and Urban Design, University of Innsbruck, Austria
PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS
MONOGRAPHS:
Compositional Intelligence: Architectural Typology through Generative AI, Routledge, London. 275 pages. ISBN: 978104103053-9, DOI: 10.4324/9781003622055, September 2025.
The Mereological City: a reading of the works of Ludwig Hilberseimer. Transcript Press in cooperation with Columbia University Press. ISBN: 978-3-8376-3466-2. 2016. 257 pages.
EDITED VOLUMES:
Mereologies, ed. Daniel Koehler, Prospectives, 1, 1, UCL Bartlett Press, London, ISSN 2634-8578, 2020.
When Numbers Dwell, Research Report 2018-19, ed. Daniel Koehler, Rasa Navsaityte, POD, London, 2019. 209 pages.
BOOK CHAPTERS:
“Generating latent worlds: mapping architectural types and their regional differences within large scale image models.” In Architecture in the AI Era: Methods and Techniques in Research, Practice, and Pedagogy, ed. Markus M. Hudert, Asterios Agkathidis, Carlos Medel Vera, SpringerBriefs in Architectural Design and Technology book series, Springer Nature, London. 2025.
“The Advent of Trees in Architecture: The new features of data-centric building typologies.“ In Diffusions - A Taxonomy of Synthetic Imaginations in Architecture Design, ed. Matias del Campo, Wiley, London, ISBN 978-1394191772, 2024, pp 130-139.
“Mereologies or Designing with Parts.” In: Design Technology and Digital Production: An Architecture Anthology, ed. Gabriel Esquivel, Routledge, London, ISBN 9781032170701, 2024.
"The City as an Element of Architecture, A mereological Survey", in: Inventories: Documentation as Design Project, ed. Carole Lévesque, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, UQAM Press, Montreal, ISBN: 978-2-9820298-0-4, 2020.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, "Elemental Architecture: On a Series of Seminars at the Vilnius Academy of Arts between 2011 – 2016." In: Digital Architecture at the Vilnius Art Academy, ed. Romualdas Kučinskas, Vilnius Dailes Akademijos Leidykla, Vilnius, 2020, pp 17-79.
PUBLICATIONS – ARTICLES BY INVITATION
Koehler, Daniel, and Leticia Peña Gómez Portugal. 2024. “El Advenimiento de Los Árboles En La Arquitectura: O La Inversión de La Autonomía Con Modelos a Gran Escala.” Bitácora Arquitectura 1 (54): 20–31. https://doi.org/10.22201/fa.14058901p.2024.54.89909.
"Large Scale Architectures: A Review of the Architecture of Generative AI” TAD Journal 8:2, doi: 10.1080/24751448.2024.2405419, 2024, pp 394-399.
“Neobaroque Natures - or Learning How to Live with Architecture and AI.” In Postdigital Neobaroque Volume 2: Research by Design, edited by Marjan Colleti, Birkhauser, Basel, 2024, pp 394-399. https://doi.org/10.25651/1.2022.0008_02
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, “Complicit Code” in: Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation ed. by Andrew Kudless and Adam Marcus, ORO Applied Research + Design, Los Angeles, ISBN 978-1-957183-39-8, 2023, pp 123-124.
“Artificial Fusion: Real Living.” Trans. Cara Jacobs. Imagicasa, Brugge, December 2022, pp 132-137.
“Review of A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences, by Shannon Mattern”, JAE Online, 2022, pp 1-3.
“More than Anything or Studying Architecture after AI” in: Teaching for Next, Platform 23, ed. Elizabeth Danze, University of Texas Press, 2022, pp 70-75.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, "Large City Architecture / Research by Architecture" in: Positions: Unfolding Architectural Endeavors, ed. Maya Ozvaldic, Bence Pap, Indre Umbrasaite, Birkhauser, Basel, Publications – Journal Articles, Peer Reviewed
“More than Anything: Advocating for synthetic architectures within large-scale language image models.” In: International Journal of Architectural Computing, Sage, DOI 10.1177/14780771231170455, 15 June 2023, pp 242-255.
"From Partitioning to Partaking, or why Mereologies matter", in: Prospectives, 1, 1, UCL Bartlett Press, London, ISSN 2634-8578, 2020, pp 11-33. ISBN 978-3-0356-2006-1, 2020.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, "The Maison Partino Manifesto", Revista Digital Antigonismos: Buenes Aires, 2020, ISSN: 2683-7749, 2020, pp 135-146.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, "The Maison Partino Manifesto", Antigonismos 04: Computation, Buenes Aires, 11.2019, ISSN: 2683-7749, 2019, pp 10-21.
"Mereological Thinking: Figurating Realities within Urban Form", Architectural Design (AD), issue Discrete, 03.2019, Wiley, London, ISSN:1554-2769, 2019, pp 30-37.
JOURNAL ARTICLES, PEER REVIEWED:
“More than Anything: Advocating for synthetic architectures within large-scale language image models.” In: International Journal of Architectural Computing, Sage, DOI 10.1177/14780771231170455, 15 June 2023, pp 242-255.
"From Partitioning to Partaking, or why Mereologies matter", in: Prospectives, 1, 1, UCL Bartlett Press, London, ISSN 2634-8578, 2020, pp 11-33.
PEER REVIEWED PAPERS WITH CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
Catherine Graubart, Daniel Koehler. “Generative Matter for Architecture: LLM-Guided Discovery and Low-Tech Prototyping of Resilient Synthetic Materials.” In: Acadia 2025 Proceedings, Miami, Forthcoming 5-7 November 2025.
Su, Xinyu, Zidong Liu, Mingzhuo Yang, and Daniel Koehler. "ZoeLength: Framework for indoor measurement from a single interior image for the popularization of AI interior design.” In: eCAADe 2024 Proceedings, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus. ISBN: 9789491207389, 09-13 September 2024, pp 413-422.
Catherine Graubart, Daniel Koehler, Juliana Felkner. "LLM Material Hybrids: A Sustainable Paradigm Shift in Building Construction through LLM-Driven Synthetic Materials." In: ACSA 2024 International Conference Proceedings: Inflections, June 27-29, 2024, Querétaro, Mexico.
"Synthetic Data Meets Architectural Typology: An Exploratory Computational Workflow with a Carbon Footprint Inference Case Study“ Asca 112 Proceedings, Vancouver, March 15 2024, pp 164-171. https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.112.23
Daniel Koehler, Zidong Liu. "Exploring Building Typologies and their Socioeconomic Contexts: Compositional Insights from large-scale-text-to-image models.“ In: Acadia 2023 Proceedings, Denver, 25-27 October 2023, pp 508-517.
Zidong Liu, Han Li, Daniel Koehler, Yan Li. "Predicting Non-functional Nodes of Floorplan via Graph Neural Network (GNN): Restructure Graph from Bubble Diagram to Floorplan Graph.” In: Ecaade Proceedings 2023, Sept 3, 2023, University of Graz, Graz, Austria, pp 529-538.
“Building Synthetic Data Sets or How to Learn from Future Architectures?”, ACADIA 2022: Hybrids and Haeccities. University of Philadelphia, 26-28 October 2022.
A. Galika, D. Koehler, "Distributed Ledgers and their Impact on Urban Form", Acadia 19: Ubiquity and Autonomy. The University of Texas at Austin, ISBN 978-0-578-59179-7, 21-26 October, 2019.
OPEN-SOURCE DATASETS:
Koehler, D. (2024). LCA-GCS: Large City Architecture - Generated Cityscape Set - [Dataset]. Huggingface. https://huggingface.co/datasets/punktiert/LCA-GIS, https://doi.org/10.57967/hf/3111, www.largecityarchitecture.org
EXHIBITIONS CURATED WITH PROFESSIONAL WORK:
“Architecture after AI II”, Boulder, University of Colorado Boulder, Dep. Of Architecture, curated by Clay Odom, Daniel Koehler, Kory Bieg, December 2 2024 – March 15 2025.
“Architecture after AI II”, Boulder, Bus Stop Gallery, Month of Modern, curated by Clay Odom, Daniel Koehler, Kory Bieg, September 6 – October 4 2024.
“Architecture After AI”, UT Austin, curated by Clay Odom, Daniel Koehler, Kory Bieg, February 2 – March 3 2023.
“Large City Architecture Research”, Mebane Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, curated by Daniel Koehler, Rasa Navasaityte, January 19 – April 15 2022.
EXHIBITIONS OF PROFESSIONAL WORK:
“Complicit Code” in: Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation curated by Andrew Kudless and Adam Marcus, Richardson Memorial Hall, New Orleans, March 17 – April 19. 2025.
“Complicit Code” in: Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation curated by Andrew Kudless and Adam Marcus, Mashburn Gallery, Houston, January 27 – February 21 2025.
“Geological Types” in “Transductions: Artificial Intelligence in Architectural Experimentation” at the Rubelle and Norman Schafler Gallery, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, curated by Jason Vigneri-Beane, Stephen Slaughter, Olivia Vien, Hart Marlow, February 6 – March 15 2025.
“Zero Mile Assemblies” in: Architecture after AI II, University of Boulder, School of Architecture, curated by Clay Odom, Daniel Koehler, Kory Bieg, October 14 – November 15 2024.
“Zero Mile Assemblies” in: Architecture after AI II, Boulder, Bus Stop Gallery, Month of Modern, curated by Clay Odom, Daniel Koehler, Kory Bieg, September 6 – October 4 2024.
“Beyond the Image: The languages of a building designed by Tunis” in: Constructing Futures, Detroit, Campus Martius, Month of Design, curated by Karl Daubmann and Sara Codarin, September 5 – October 4 2024.
“What about Cows: The future of parking and other Carbon Hinterlands” in: Solarpunk Futures at the P61, Berlin , curated by Sven Suaer, September 21 – December 19 2023.
“Buildings like Mountains, Streets like Valleys” in: Mobile Detroit 2050, College of Architecture and Design, Southfield, curated by Sara Codarin and Karl Daubmann, September 14 – September 28 2023.
“Designing Cities with Cities” in: Architecture after AI – an international overview of generated architecture, Mebane Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, February 2 – March 3 2023.
"One Hour Architecture", Video Installation at the "Strange" exhibition at the Funktion, Fort Worth, Texas. 16 - 23 July 2022.
“Large City Architecture Research”, Solo Exhibition curated by Daniel Koehler, Rasa Navasaityte, Mebane Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, January 19 – April 15 2022.
"One Minute Architecture", contribution to "Potenziale 3: Insights into Architectural Research", curated by Stefan Rutzinger, Thomas Feuerstein, AUT, the Austrian Forum for Architecture, Innsbruck, Oct 14, 2021 - Feb 12, 2022.
“One Minute Architecture”, CITYX Venice exhibition at the 17th Venice Biennale Italian Virtual Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia: ‘How will we live together?' curated by Hashim Sarkis MIT, Tom Kovacs, RMIT. 22nd May - 21st of November 2021. https://cityxvenice.org/8
"Thinking Parts: when numbers dwell", IARC Research Show, at Die Baeckerei, Innsbruck, 07. March - 13. March (Interrupted due to the lockdown) 2020.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, "Large City Architecture Research", in the exhibition: Rise of the Familiar + Soft Discrete Familiars. Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth, October 4 – October 23 2019.
D. Koehler, R. Navasaityte, “Maison Partino”, Experimental Architecture Biennale Prague, Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera, Prague, 14 June – 30 August 2019.
"The City as an Element of Architecture", Urban Inventories, Design Museum, Montreal, 11 March – 30 March 2019.
