Students Explore Human-Centered AI Through New Gensler-Supported Course
As AI creates new opportunities for the design professions, firms like Gensler are exploring how to equip the next generation of architects and designers to use emerging tools thoughtfully, creatively, and in human-centered ways.
ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, Knoxville, ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ has launched a new course exploring the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in architecture and design, .
“Prompting Impact: Human-Centered AI and Design Intelligence” is a cross-disciplinary course this fall, examining how emerging AI technologies can help designers interpret information, navigate uncertainty, develop ideas, and communicate design concepts while maintaining human judgment and accountability.
Led by Rana Abudayyeh, associate professor and Robin Klehr Avia Professor of Interior Architecture, the course brings together perspectives from architecture, interior architecture, computation, professional practice, representation and emerging forms of artificial intelligence.
“We structured Prompting Impact as a series of interconnected modules led by faculty, researchers, and practitioners because generative AI cannot be understood through a single tool or point of view,” said Abudayyeh. “Moving across image-making, coding, data visualization, digital modeling, and spatial experimentation, students return to questions of ethics, representation, and design judgment. They are learning not simply to use AI, but to interrogate the assumptions embedded in these systems and decide when (and whether) AI belongs in a responsible design process. Technical agility will be expected in the profession they are entering. What will distinguish them is the ability to adapt and collaborate without surrendering critical judgment or responsibility.”
Exploring AI as a Design Partner
The 16-week course is organized around two core modules and four shorter intensives, allowing students to examine AI from multiple disciplinary and professional perspectives. Core topics include AI-mediated ethics and narrative intelligence and the client mindset, while short modules explore AI as a design accelerator, reading big data at the human scale, productive uses of error and ambiguity, and ecological intelligence.
Students will investigate issues including bias, representation, authorship, disclosure and accountability; learn to translate complex research and data into meaningful design insight; and develop persuasive narratives for clients, institutions and public audiences. They will also experiment with hybrid workflows spanning text, image, diagram, model, video, data and spatial representation.
Students will work with a range of AI and design technologies—including generative AI, visualization, computational and spatial tools—but tool selection must be justified by the method, intended outcome and human-centered aims of the work.
Connecting Students with Professional Practice
Gensler’s investment will also connect UT students and faculty with the expertise and resources of one of the world’s leading architecture, design, and planning firms. Brooks Morelock (’11), Gensler principal, will serve as the firm’s Principal Sponsor for the UT course, providing practice-based insight and helping connect the university with resources and perspectives from across Gensler.
“AI’s greatest potential isn’t simply to make designers faster, but to help us make better decisions and amplify our impact,” said Morelock. “Through Prompting Impact, we’re challenging students to lead with human purpose, think critically, and turn ideas into action. Gensler’s university partnerships are helping define a new era of digital craftsmanship—where AI expands what’s possible, but human creativity and judgment remain at the center.”
The partnership reflects a shared interest in helping students understand both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with emerging technologies. By bringing together academic exploration and professional experience, the course will give students an opportunity to investigate how AI may influence the future of design while developing the critical thinking and creative judgment needed to shape that future.
Investing in the Future of Design Education
The Gensler Academic Partnership Fund supports university curriculum initiatives that prepare students for the evolving realities of professional practice. The 2026 initiative builds on the fund’s university course development program, first piloted in 2024 with a focus on sustainability.
UT’s relationship with the initiative began with the Zero|Spec Workshop, a multidisciplinary course supported by Gensler that brought students from across the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ and the broader university together to explore zero-energy and zero-carbon design. Led by Distinguished Lecturer James Rose, the workshop challenged students to assess the energy and carbon performance of existing projects and develop strategies to reduce embodied energy and operational carbon.
“The Zero|Spec workshop showed us the value of organizing a course around a shared challenge while bringing academic and professional expertise into the room at the same time,” said Abudayyeh. “Its collaborative and applied structure informed the way we developed Prompting Impact: Human-Centered AI and Design Intelligence. Working closely with a Gensler team of UT alumni allowed us to continue that exchange between education and practice as the course took shape.”