Teaching Staff
Dr. Theodore Spyropoulos
Programme Head
Dr. Patrik Schumacher
Founder
Dr. Pierandrea Angius
Dr. Shajay Bhooshan
Dr. Nerma Cridge
David Greene
Nassia Inglessis
Course Masters
Elizabeth Konstantinidou
Programme Coordinator
Apostolos Despotidis
Hanjun Kim
Henry David Louth
Jose Pareja Gomez
Ashwin Shah
Ogulcan Sulucay
Course Tutors
Carlos Andres Lora Yunen
Klaus Platzgummer
Macarena Poppe
Synthesis Tutors
Selim Helse
Akshay Khumar
Zhicheng Yang
Software Tutors
Albert Williamson -Taylor
Edoardo Tibuzzi
Technical Tutors - AKT II
Biographies
Dr. Theodore Spyropoulos
Dr. Theodore Spyropoulos is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s world-renowned Design Research Lab (AADRL) in London and a resident artist at Somerset House. He previously chaired the AA Graduate School and was a Professor of Architecture at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt and a visiting Research Fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. He co-founded the experimental art, architecture, and design practice Minimaforms with Stephen Spyropoulos. The work of Minimaforms has been acquired by international art and architecture collections, including the FRAC Centre, the Signum Foundation, and the M+ Archigram Archive. His work has been exhibited at MOMA (NYC), the Barbican Centre, the Onassis Cultural Centre, Somerset House, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology, and the ICA. He previously worked for the offices of Peter Eisenman and Zaha Hadid. In 2013, the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture awarded him the ACADIA Award of Excellence for his educational work directing the AADRL. He has been published internationally and is the author of Adaptive Ecologies: Correlated Systems of Living (2013), Enabling (2010), and the forthcoming publications Quantum (2026) and Elemental: Phenomena as Technology (2026).
Dr. Patrik Schumacher
Dr. Patrik Schumacher is principal of Zaha Hadid Architects and is leading the firm since Zaha Hadid’s passing in March 2016. He joined Zaha Hadid in 1988 and was seminal in developing Zaha Hadid Architects to become a 400 strong global architecture and design brand. Patrik Schumacher studied philosophy, mathematics andarchitecture in Bonn, Stuttgart and London. He received his Diploma in architecture in 1990. He has been a partner since 2003 and a co-author on all projects. In 2010 Patrik Schumacher won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture together with Zaha Hadid, for MAXXI, the National Italian Museum for Art and Architecture of the 21st century in Rome. He is an academician of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1996 he founded the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association in London where he continues to teach. IPatrik Schumacher is lecturing worldwide and is currently a guest professor at Harvard’s GSD. Over the last 20 years he has contributed over 100 articles to architectural journals and anthologies.
Dr. Pierandrea Angius
Dr. Pierandrea Angius is an Architect and an Educator, specialised in the application of procedural and form-finding techniques at all stages of the design process with an established expertise in complex and large-scale buildings, and automotive design. He holds a PhD in Building Technology and he received his MArch in Architecture and Urbanism from the AA School. He joined Ferrari S.p.A. in 2021 after working for 11 years as Associate at Zaha Hadid Architects.
Dr. Shajay Bhooshan
Dr. Shajay Bhooshan is an Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects where he heads the research activities of the Computation and Design (CoDe) group. He also works as a studio master at the AA DRL Master’s program in London. He pursues his research in structure and fabrication aware architectural geometry as a PhD Candidate at the Block Research Group, ETH Zurich. Previously, he has worked at Populous, London and completed his M.Phil from the university of Bath and M. Arch from the AA School of Architecture, London.
Dr. Nerma Cridge
Dr. Nerma Cridge received her PhD from the AA in 2012 and MSc and Diploma in Architecture from the Bartlett UCL. She has experience in academia and practice for over 20 years. Her research publications include monograph based on her PhD thesis on the Soviet avant-garde Drawing the Unbuildable (2015), "Restless: Drawn by Zaha Hadid" in Routledge Companion on Women in Architecture.
Nassia Inglessis
Nassia Inglessis is the founder of Studio INI. A practice based in London & Athens that couples scientific research and design-engineering experimentation with public engagement through human-actuated | element-actuated installations and kinetic architectural modules. In her research, that stems from a technical foundation in Engineering Science (MEng honours - Oxford University) and research in the MIT Media Lab, she seeks to develop new platforms of material and structural logic. In her process she co-opts automation across material-driven processes to generate models of fabrication and structure crafted to be an interface to the ecosystem they inhabit. In parallel, with a human centric approach, she explores matter in the context of cognition to provoke new perceptions, experiences and prototypes of behaviour. Her work and that of her practice Studio INI, manifests in publications, patents, architectural proposals and large scale installations, as she retains a platform of live experimentation and direct provocation, as a dynamic feedback loop to her practice’s research.
David Greene
David Greene (born Nottingham England 1937) after usual English provincial suburban upbringing, studied at an art school, after being elected associate member of the RIBA embarked onto London. Here he began a nervous, nomadic and twitchy career, from big buildings for developers to T-shirts and shops for Paul Smith, to conceptual speculations for Archigram, which he founded with Peter Cook. This peripatetic journey from form to absence was documented in L.A.W.u.N Project #19+20, a book-thing and an AA exhibition, co-edited and co-curated with Samantha Hardingham. David was awarded RIBA Gold Medal and Joint Annie Spinks Award with Peter Cook in 2002. Currently maybe the Provost of the Invisible University?
Albert Williamson -Taylor
Albert Williamson -Taylor is a co-founder and Director of AKT II, one of the UK’s leading engineering practices, known for its collaborative and innovative approach to design. He has been a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers since 2008 and was granted an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2009 in recognition of his contribution to architecture and the wider built environment. Albert sits on the Newham Design Review Panel and previously served on the Southwark Design Review Panel (2006–2012). He is also Chair of the Board of Open City, the architecture and education charity that runs Open House. Since 2011, he has been a core technical tutor at the AA Design Research Lab, supporting the programme’s integration of architectural design with structural and material innovation.
Elizabeth Konstantinidou
Elizabeth Konstantinidou is a Senior Architect at Zaha Hadid Architects and a registered architect in the UK and Greece. Since joining the practice in 2020, she has worked on large scale cultural and urban projects across the Middle East, South East Europe and Russia. She studied Architectural Engineering at the Democritus University of Thrace before completing her MArch in Architecture and Urbanism at the AA Design Research Lab. At the AADRL, she teaches as Course Tutor, supporting students in the development of their prototyping and design research work, while also contributing to the coordination and academic organisation of the programme. In parallel with her architectural and academic work, she has collaborated with Theodore Spyropoulos and Minimaforms on exhibitions in France, Italy and the UK.
Apostolos Despotidis
Apostolos Despotidis is a registered architect in UK and in Greece. He is working as an Associate Partner at Foster and Partners where he is involved in a wide range of projects worldwide. He is a tutor at the Architectural Association since 2013 focusing on the development of the prototypes at the DRL while running various design workshops in the UK (Architectural Association, Royal College of Art, École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris). He holds an MArch degree from the DRL in the Architectural Association and an Architect/Engineer degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Hanjun Kim
Hanjun Kim is an architectural designer and educator based in London, specialising in computational design methodologies. He is a course tutor at the Architectural Association Design Research Lab (AADRL) and an associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, and teaches computational modules at UCL Bartlett B-Pro. He has delivered lectures and workshops internationally, including in the UK and South Korea. He holds a Master’s degree from the AADRL and a Bachelor’s degree from Hongik University. His research focuses on computational and generative approaches to architecture, with particular emphasis on human–technology interaction and the modulation of spatial perception. His current work explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality within architectural design practice.
Edoardo Tibuzzi
Edoardo Tibuzzi is a Design Director at AKT II, where he leads the practice’s computational and bioclimatic design research. His work focuses on data-informed and parametric methods that integrate structural, environmental and architectural design. He has contributed to projects including Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London, winner of the 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize, and the London 2012 Coca-Cola Beatbox pavilion. Edoardo studied engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, specialising in structural restoration, and has since developed expertise in uncertainty modelling, multi-scale analysis and design optimisation. He has taught at the Architectural Association, the Royal College of Art and Harvard GSD, and serves on the Computational Design Panel of the Institution of Structural Engineers. His writings have been published in journals and international conferences such as Fabricate and Nexus.
Jose Pareja Gomez
Born in Mexico City. MArch in Architecture and Urbanism by the Architectural Association in London UK. He has been a lecturer on diverse technology and architectural forums in Latin America and Europe. He is a Senior Associate at Zaha Hadid Architects where he has worked on a series of Urban and Architectural projects specialising in the use of computation within the design development process. In addition, he is a VR developer for the ZHVR Group, AR/VR research and development group within ZHA. He’s previously been a Course Tutor Bartlett UCL BPro's Research Cluster 9, unit focused on extended realities and augmentation in architectural design and fabrication.
Ashwin Shah
Ashwin is a senior associate at Zaha Hadid Architects. He started as a member of Computation and Design Research Group (CoDe), and he now focuses on large scale projects from competition to delivery through computational workflows. Ashwin received his B.Arch with distinction from The National Institute of Technology in India and his M.Arch from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. Since graduating he has been part of numerous visiting schools in India and research papers along with CoDe.
Henry David Louth