Architecture Re-Founded: Shajay Bhooshan at the IAAC Lecture Series 2025/26

Titled Architecture Re-Founded: Renewing Motivations and Foundations for an AI-Enhanced Era, the lecture brought together students, researchers and invited guests for a rigorous and timely conversation about the future of architectural practice in the age of artificial intelligence.

In his lecture, Bhooshan argued that the arrival of generative AI, vibe coding and AI-augmented design — tools that promise unprecedented speed, resolution and creative dialogue with machines — must not be embraced uncritically. Instead, 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 contended, must extend architecture’s lineage — renewing both structural rationality and material precision — rather than severing it from the discipline’s accumulated knowledge.

Central to the lecture was a reassertion of 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, Bhooshan argued, amplifying responsibility matters more than ever. Technology must serve people — not replace the architect’s judgement.

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), exploring 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.