IAAC – Advanced Architecture Barcelona welcomes Shajay Bhooshan, Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects and co-founder of ZHACODE, for a new session within the IAAC Lecture Series 2025/26.
Titled Architecture Re-Founded: Renewing Motivations and Foundations for an AI-Enhanced Era, the lecture will take place on Tuesday, May 26 at 19:00 at IAAC in Barcelona and will be open to students, alumni and invited guests.
Architecture Re-Founded: Renewing Motivations and Foundations for an AI-Enhanced Era
In this lecture, Shajay Bhooshan will explore what it means to practice architecture in an era defined by generative AI, vibe coding, and AI-augmented design – tools that promise unprecedented speed, resolution, and creative dialogue with machines.
Rather than embracing these developments uncritically, Bhooshan argues that this new era must be firmly grounded in architecture’s deeper foundations: geometry-based reasoning, tectonic intelligence, and the hard-won integration of design and construction advanced through Architectural Geometry and Robotic and Digital Fabrication. AI, he contends, must not detach architecture from its lineage but extend it — renewing both structural rationality and material precision.
The lecture will also reassert architecture’s primary obligation: service to the client and, ultimately, to the end-users whose lives are shaped by built space. In an age of accelerating intelligence, amplifying responsibility matters more than ever.
About Shajay Bhooshan
Shajay Bhooshan is an Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects, where he co-founded and leads the Computation and Design research group (ZHACODE) since 2007. He is an alumnus and studio master at the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association (AADRL, 2006), where he explores the application of computational design and gaming technologies to industrialised urban development. He completed his doctoral studies at the Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zurich in 2022, and holds an M.Phil. from the University of Bath (2016). Bhooshan has published widely in scientific journals and architectural magazines, and is a regular speaker at professional and academic conferences worldwide.
The IAAC Lecture Series brings together leading architects, researchers and practitioners to discuss critical questions shaping the future of architecture and the built environment. If you would like to attend the lecture, please register using the form below.
If you would like to attend the lecture, please register using the form below.