Imagining the Unseen AI, Memoryscapes, and the Interiorities of the Red Road Flats

Abstract

The interior is deeply interwoven with human subjectivity, serving as a repository for memory and affect. This intrinsic connection is profoundly challenged when urban renewal leads to the erasure of the built environment, displacing the collective memory of entire communities. The following exploration confronts this issue through the case study of the demolished Red Road Flats in Glasgow, positioning generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a speculative medium for preserving and representing marginalised histories. This research proposes a new approach that translates former residents' memories into a series of evocative interior moments. The process starts by producing 2D images and ends with 3D physical items being created. Instead of redeeming AI’s non-literal and associational nature as technical constraints, the approach openly receives them as a creative catalyst. Through this human–computer collaborative work, ensuing visual depictions are empowered to step out of mere fact-based rehabilitation. In the final installation, it produces a new type of physical memorial that gives tangible form to individuals' subjective experiences. The work not only proposes a new template for commemoration of lost architectural history, it also shows the significant potential of AI to develop counter-narratives with images that challenge monolithic official histories.