PAZ Kaffi is the AEC newsroom of PAZ Academy Zürich — daily dispatches on architecture, computational design, BIM and AI.
Heinz Isler's 1968 shells at Deitingen Süd span 31 m with 9 cm of concrete, their form found with hanging cloth. A Solothurn monument since 2000.
30 SEP
CH
EM2N opened its own low-tech office at Open House Zürich 2026. Why a partner-led tour is post-occupancy on yourself, and a five-decision tour script.
30 SEP
Google claims WeatherNext 3 gives 50% better rain forecasts a day ahead. What a 0.25° grid cell means in Zurich, and how Bauleitung teams should test it.
29 SEP
Why 'left of the line?' can return the wrong sign in floating point, and how to build Shewchuk's robust orientation test in a Grasshopper C# component.
29 SEP
Why transport, throughput and discount rate price an asteroid before its ore grade does — and what NASA Psyche's platinum question means for your specs.
29 SEP
CH
MGBahn's Mattertal Tunnel moves the Täsch–Zermatt line into 4.1 km of rock. Its public display closes today, so here is how to weigh protecting against relocating.
28 SEP
Week 39 on PAZ Kaffi: ETH Zurich reads Earth's recipe from ten isotopes, Swiss data dictionaries, old bridges, Chair44 and a 0.80 m IFC door check.
28 SEP
On 30 September 2026 our Archicad Powersession reads SIA 358 railings and parapets through the model: favourites, IFC checks and a triage script.
28 SEP
CH
Kalkbreite in Zürich, read from the rails up: VBZ depot, city ring, raised courtyard, 256 residents, and the written rules that hold the megablock together.
"The machine doesn't have taste. We have taste. The machine has a tempo."
27 SEP
A Harvard and University of Tokyo team grows deployable scissor lattices joint by joint. What it means for kinetic facades and pavilions in Switzerland.
27 SEP
From Frazer's 1995 manifesto to Galapagos and NSGA-II: how design by breeding works, where the fitness function holds the power, and how to audit it.
27 SEP
A seven-cube chair with three colours of marks fills space but never repeats. How Chair44's 8-page proof works, and why one part needs one mould.
A studio in District B-12 has been operating in three time zones for nineteen months, with a permanent night shift that handles the regulator's queue while the rest of the world sleeps. The model: caffeine, clear handoffs, and a refusal to pretend that buildings are designed during business hours. We embedded for two nights.
Heinz Isler's 1968 shells at Deitingen Süd span 31 m with 9 cm of concrete, their form found with hanging cloth. A Solothurn monument since 2000.
Every morning at 04:00 the press in the basement of the kaffi spits out 2,400 broadsheets in a font we cut ourselves. The kids pick them up on the way to site, fold them into their toolbelts, and read them at lunch with grease on their fingers. The feed has not killed this. The feed has made it more useful — a single, slow, opinionated edit of a day too noisy to read live.
The print desk takes one position per story. The web desk runs a hundred. Both can be true. The point is that someone, somewhere, is still willing to pick.
There is a reason the best façade we ran this month was sketched on a napkin in the kaffi at 06:12 and not generated in a prompt. The hand still knows things the model has to be told twice.
Every studio we visit now hires straight into a 22:00–06:00 rotation. The juniors love it. The seniors who fought to get out of it find it harder to argue with the throughput numbers.
Hybrid CLT + steel core. Topping out by Q3.
Robotic masonry hits a real spec, not a demo.
And why the big vendors are quietly nervous.
Maps, owners, opening hours, kaffi quality.
The AEC dispatch lands in your inbox at 04:42 CET. Twelve stories, one bad joke, zero PR fluff. We sign each one.
The airlock is still sealed. Join the dispatch for now — VIP seats get called there first.
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