Patrik Schumacher is principal of Zaha Hadid Architects and was seminal in developing Zaha Hadid Architects to become a 500 strong global architecture and design brand. He won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize for excellence, is a recipient of the European Prize for Architecture, and 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. In 1999 he received his PhD from the Institute of Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University. Patrik Schumacher is a visiting International PhD Supervisor at Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning. 

Since 2007 he has published a series of manifestos promoting Parametricism as the new epochal style for the 21^st century. In 2010/12 he published “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”, in two Volumes, theorizing architecture’s societal function and elaborating architecture’s historical tasks. His latest book, ‘Tectonism – Architecture for the 21^st Century’, was released in 2023. His current research focuses on the metaverse as opportunity for architecture.  Patrik Schumacher is widely recognised as one of the most prominent thought leaders within the fields of architecture, urbanism and design.