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Meet Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid's Ambitious, Abrasive Successor

EVEN IF YOU'RE to design buff, You Might Have not heard of Patrik Schumacher-until recently. But the death of Pritzker-winning architect Zaha Hadid spring has esta Had the odd side effect of making Schumacher, her outspoken and ambitious deputy, famous.

Along With Hadid, I developed a style called Parametricism, Which Relies on digital algorithms to Respond to environmental parameters like sun, wind, gravity, and geology. You can see it in the torqued, curved forms of buildings like Hadid's never-to-be-built Olympic Stadium in Tokyo , Whose rounded, white shell Looked like smoke rushing over a car in a wind tunnel, and in the newly-completed Port House in Antwerp, Belgium, made of crystalline facets floating over an existing fire station.

But beyond stylistic panache, colleagues know Schumacher-a strong-jawed German WHO rocks a look that's equal parts CEO and Bond villain-for His blunt criticism of His profession's Weaknesses. I have calls critics "dismissive" and "disdainful." He accuses architects of "misguided political correctness," and says They are guilty of "confusing architecture and art." In his new role as head of Zaha Hadid Architects, Schumacher has turned His criticism on His own practice, rolling out plans for what I calls "Parametricism 2.0," to better address the human factors like productivity, social interaction, culture, and well-being detractors used to say That Hadid ignored. "I have to step up," Schumacher says. "I will build my own star power."

Building by Numbers

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Schumacher Studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and the Southbank University in London and philosophy at Bonn and London Universities. He has a PhD from the Institute for Cultural Sciences at the University of Klangenfurt, and I Went to work for Hadid in 1988. Over the years I Became Known in small circles as the firm's behind-the-scenes intellectual muscle. (ITS Hadid being artistic one, and Its force of personality.) Schumacher coined the term "Parametricism" in 2009, and supported the movement Hadid's shift into increasingly functional territory. "It's not good enough anymore to just close your eyes and picture something, or Have an anecdotal experience of what you Might want," Schumacher says. "Data can inform and help Should the shape of a building."