Patrik Schumacher is partner at Zaha Hadid Architects and founding director at the AA Design Research Lab. He joined Zaha Hadid in 1988. Schumacher studied philosophy and architecture in Bonn, London and Stuttgart, where he received his Diploma in architecture in 1990. In 1999 he completed his PHD at the Institute for Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University. In 1996 he founded the ‘Design Research Laboratory’ with Brett Steele, at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, and continues to serve as one of its co-directors. Since 2004 Patrik Schumacher has also been tenured Professor at the Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University. Currently he is a guest professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He is an editorial board member of AD and he is also publishing the first volume of his forthcoming theoretical work, The Autopoiesis of Architecture: a new framework for architecture, with John Wiley & Sons.