At the Copenhagen headquarters of popular architectural practice Henning Larsen, the launch of the firm’s brand-new business partnership with Krea started with a clear premise: AI should not be reserved for a small group of experts. It should be checked, questioned and formed jointly.
Henning Larsen have selected a distinctively bottom-up approach, letting designers across the company check out and use any AI tools before dedicating to an enterprise partnership. The objective is to guarantee that new innovation adoption doesn’t get confined to tech-savvy users, a timeless trap numerous business fall into: a group of power users soaks up the tool, and the rest of the organization just delegates jobs to them in the spirit of “automation.”
For Eliana Nigro, Head of Digital Adoption at Henning Larsen, the partnership with Krea reflects a wider culture of shared knowledge. She opened the occasion by describing the company’s method to AI adoption in the “spirit of partnership” and as a kind of “cumulative learning.” Rather than concentrating AI expertise within a single, siloed group, Henning Larsen is pursuing a horizontal design, where designers throughout the practice, from rendering to video to urban planning, assistance define how the technology should be used.
< img src="https://blog.architizer.com/wp-content/uploads/KREA-partnership_Henning-Larsen_-single-planting-palette-visualization-5-copy.jpg"alt= "" width="1650"height="716"/ > A visualization of a planting pallet produced with Krea by landscape designer Brian Mallig Collado. Henning Larsen, 2025
This technique brought an unexpected style to the surface area– not the story of AI automation you may anticipate, however something far simpler and more important: interaction.
Henning Larsen’s belief is that when every member of a team gains access to a tool that enables effective visual communication, something shifts. Now, they are not simply working faster; they begin to understand each other much better.
AI as a Tool for Interaction
Throughout presentations by Henning Larsen architects Joachim Makholm, Samuele Agrimi and Martin Petersen, AI was shown less as a device for producing ended up propositions and more as a method to make ideas noticeable previously in the lifecycle of a job.
Makholm explained AI as an “additional production tool embedded in the design procedure” and “an encouraging tool to help us communicate our ideas much better.” In one case, where the team might not use a drone to catch site imagery, Krea was used to create visuals that assisted guide early client discussions about the place.
Krea is used in the office to explore approaches for enhancing low-resolution aerial images. Imagined here: a non-project test using Google Earth images from Vík, Iceland. Nitsan Bartov, Henning Larsen, 2026
Petersen focused on AI’s ability to align understanding across groups and customers. Utilizing a single base image, his team created distinct programmatic scenarios that depicted different interpretations of a space as a beginning point for discussion. Work that once required hours in Photoshop might be produced rapidly enough to notify the conversation in genuine time.
Designer Martin Frank Petersen utilized Krea to create early-stage visualizations of a multi-functional space in different situations. Imagined here in animated kind: The empty base image, a visualization of the space used for a clay workshop, and finally, a visualization of the area being used as a community dining hall. Henning Larsen, 2025
For architects, that speed essentially changes the function of the image. Instead of coming to completion of a design phase as a refined making, images can become a working instrument inside the procedure. It can clarify intent, expose difference and aid clients comprehend what a specific conceptual direction might feel like without it needing to be totally designed.
Nigro explained this as a shift from presentation towards co-creation. “It’s no longer about persuading someone, however discovering ways to concur and relocate a particular direction,” she stated.
The shift towards co-creation is a pattern Krea’s Collaborations Team sees across the industry. “The companies getting the most from these tools aren’t utilizing visuals as a single sign-off minute; they’re utilizing them to open a conversation,” states Helena Grau. “When an idea can be comprehended from the start and shaped in real time, you stop trying to align on a vision and begin building one together.”
Landscape Architect Philippe Larocque used Krea to develop visualizations of different flooding situations. Envisioned here, the base situation (leading left), a visualization of a new creek (top right), then a visualization of a small flood (lower left) and finally a situation visualization of a large flood (lower right).
In landscape and urban style, this method has the potential to be specifically effective, enabling groups to evaluate designs versus environmental conditions, atmospheric qualities and lived experience much earlier at the same time.
Crucially, that power is conditional: the worth comes just when these tools are in the hands of individuals who understand how climate really acts– domain specialists who can check out the outputs seriously and confirm them against reality, not AI experts taking results at face value.
Why Krea Matters
Diego Rodriguez, Krea Co-Founder and CTO, placed Krea as more than another AI image tool. He described the company as an effort to build something closer to a new Autodesk or Adobe: an innovative suite for an AI-native age.
He opened with a candid line: “Individuals are drunk in the AI industry; ideally I can bring a bit of sobriety.” AI is typically discussed through extremes within innovative industries, from over-the-top hype to aggressive dismissal. As a remedy to this, Krea’s aim is to construct tools that make useful sense for design specialists.
Krea performs its own foundational design research, which Rodriguez provided as a key distinction from products that simply cover existing models.
Krea’s Co-Founder and CTO Diego Rodriguez demos Krea at Henning Larsen’s Copenhagen
Head office. Photo by Isuru Perera The occasion likewise accompanied the launch of K2, Krea’s new model that permits users to train their own models and collaborate with them. K2 has actually recently been top-ranked for text-to-image models by Artificial Analysis, a landmark accomplishment for an insurgent AI lab burglarizing a ranking otherwise dominated by OpenAI and Google.
For architecture companies, the capability to develop designs around their own visual language, professional experience and workflows might become significantly important, and the capability to develop domain-specific tools around those models is where it gets genuinely interesting for the market.
Working with Henning Larsen, Rodriguez said, “makes us better at what we do: developing the most powerful generative tools possible and guaranteeing Krea tooling stays above the high bar that designers are understood for.”
The Threat of “Convincing” Images
Among the most compelling minutes of the event was when the speakers attended to some of AI’s present restrictions in the context of architectural design.
Nitsan Bartov, architect and AI researcher at Henning Larsen, raised among the central risks for designers: AI can produce extremely convincing images of things that may be physically impossible to construct. A structure developed in concrete can be transformed into timber with a simple prompt and become a seductive image, even if the result makes no structural sense.
While AI might not understand the distinction, the architect must. In architecture, representation brings obligation; an engaging rendering can affect clients, approvals and expectations. If AI speeds up image production without preserving the understanding behind it, the occupation risks losing reliability. This is exactly where a collaboration like that between Henning Larsen and Krea makes its location. No tool eliminates the danger on its own– however the best cooperation can build the workflows, shared literacy and critical routines that keep innovative speed and technical rigor in the very same room. That’s the genuine work, and it’s what this collaboration is set up to do.
Henning Larsen’s Head of Digital Adoption, Eliana Nigro speaks at Henning Larsen’s head office in Copenhagen. Picture by Martina Lanotte. Nigro made an associated point: the quality of AI output depends heavily on the individual using it. When generative AI image development first became mainstream, a generic “AI architectural design” spread rapidly throughout social media. The designers who moved beyond that were those with clearer concepts and a nuanced method to AI tools.
“AI ends up being a loudspeaker for your concepts,” she said.
Human Judgment Stays Central
The final audience question was perhaps the most intriguing: Could AI eventually change architects if given adequate qualitative information? Rodriguez challenged the facility of the question, keeping in mind that designers and their scope of work do not fall under a single category. Bartov pushed back more directly, arguing that architectural quality is subjective, culturally particular and difficult to determine. There will always be design factors to consider that need human oversight.
Nigro and Bartov linked the conversation back to the structures of architectural practice. Excellent architecture still requires studying history, visiting places and establishing a sensation for products and human behavior. “Feeling area, materials, compassion, principles– these are human elements you constantly stay in control of, and this is what makes good architecture,” stated Nigro.
She added that, while workflow optimization is helpful, the ability to be discerning is as important as ever for architects. “The capability to pick well is critical, and to select well, you require to have a great deal of knowledge.”
It’s a concern that deserves far more than a few minutes at the end of a panel, and one Krea and Henning Larsen will be checking out in depth in an upcoming short article on Architizer.
Krea’s Co-Founder and CTO Diego Rodriguez (center) speaks with Henning Larsen’s Nitsan Bartov (left) and Eliana Nigro (best) at Henning Larsen’s headquarters in Copenhagen. Image by Martina Lanotte.
Krea is a powerful tool for transforming style interaction, but the lesson from Henning Larsen’s collaboration goes further than the tool itself. Leading architecture companies can and must begin to build the cultures and crucial structures needed to utilize these tools well.
AI will continue to assist designers envision faster and test concepts with greater fluidity. But as Nigro’s “loudspeaker” example suggests, the quality of the outcome will constantly depend upon the quality of the thinking behind it.
Explore Henning Larsen’s current jobs here and find out more about how Krea Business can benefit your group’s creative workflow here.
The arrangement covers information security, copyright protection for AI-generated images, and EU AI Act compliance where relevant.