PAZ Kaffi is the AEC newsroom of PAZ Academy Zürich — daily dispatches on architecture, computational design, BIM and AI.
A comedian's AI agent offered $60K when he wanted $140K. Why fee proposals and tenders need a human-signed floor before any AI agent negotiates.
21 OCT
The EIC funded 8 of 93 robot-collective proposals; Stuttgart's ICD coordinates two: a crane-and-robot timber fleet and a leaderless swarm with EPFL.
21 OCT
CH
How Depot Hard in Zürich-West carries 65 and 68 m towers over a tram depot: 111 piles, a 430 t mass on springs, a prestressed slab and outrigger floors.
20 OCT
Part 2 of PAZ's Rhino 8 ScriptEditor series: pick a grid axis, divide it every 6 m with rhinoscriptsyntax and place numbered column markers in any unit.
20 OCT
Enki Bilal's Bug imagines the digital world vanishing. At 75 his Paris Fonds shows 200+ works on paper. What that means for a building's 60-year record.
20 OCT
CH
Eawag's Bouffard report: 12 of 26 Swiss lakes at record lows, surfaces +3 °C. Why Swiss lake-water networks must be designed for the hot year.
19 OCT
PAZ Kaffi's W42 review: Zürich's new high-rise rules, Stuttgart's 36 cm timber flat slab, ETH's microbial rock, a humanoid that plans its fall and a solar hack.
19 OCT
On 21 October 2026 at PAZ Central Zurich, we use PAZ-BOX to automate zones, room stamps and area checks in the Archicad design phase. Bring your own file.
19 OCT
CH
SBB adds track 4 35 m into the hill at Zurich Stadelhofen. What a CHF 1.7 bn station, Verkehr '45 and a 90-second rhythm teach Swiss architects.
"The machine doesn't have taste. We have taste. The machine has a tempo."
18 OCT
The 2026 Ig Nobel physics prize, awarded in Zurich, went to a seashell-curve urinal. Its 30-degree impact rule belongs in every wet-room detail.
18 OCT
CH
Three years after the 2023 vote: heat pumps rose from 17% to 25% of Swiss buildings, and year one of the Impulsprogramm used about 90% of its funds.
18 OCT
Aerogel insulates better than still air. How nano-pores stop heat, where Swiss facades use it, and a short Python check for the floor area it gives back.
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.
A comedian's AI agent offered $60K when he wanted $140K. Why fee proposals and tenders need a human-signed floor before any AI agent negotiates.
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.
© 2026 PAZ Academy.
