Reconstructing literary space using artificial intelligence-enhanced architectural representation methods: Georges Perec and the Plassaert Apartment

Abstract

Positioned at the intersection of literature and architecture, this study explores how abstract spaces constructed in literary texts can be reconstructed using architectural representation tools and artificial intelligence technologies. The focus of the research is the Plassaert apartment in Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, which details the space through everyday objects and lists, and the users of this space across different periods. The object-human relationships, hoarding tendencies, and the psychological weight of the space described in the text have been transformed into architectural representations through artificial intelligence (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot). The study’s methodology is based on a spatial accumulation model constructed around the parameters of Actor, Space, and Time. The 5-Level Prompt Model has transformed these literary data into a visual language, producing the spatial counterpart of each actor in their own time. Within the scope of the findings, the layering created by the material concerns, psychological and social states of space users through objects has been concretised through spatial indicators. The narrative structure in Perec’s literature (chess and jigsaw puzzle metaphors) has been represented through conceptual collages. In the final stage, plan and section planes were superimposed simultaneously, developing a representational model where the temporal traces left by different actors in the same physical space can be read in a multi-layered manner. In conclusion, this research demonstrates that literature offers a multi-layered research field for architectural analysis and representation; it also reveals that AI-supported tools can play a supportive role in visualizing this layered structure.