About us

We believe that the built environment influences how people move, interact, and experience the world around them.

By leveraging innovative technologies
like parametric design and AI, we simplify complex challenges into elegant solutions. What sets ZJA apart is the unique process we follow, discovering challenges and creating solutions through research, testing, and collaboration. It’s this approach that drives the success of our projects, developed with our clients and partners, of which we are incredibly proud.

Our core values are driven by a commitment to inventive design, seamless collaboration, and creating sustainable solutions that enrich both the environment and society.

Innovation in Computational Design

ZJA pioneers the use of algorithmic and parametric tools to explore new architectural forms and optimize performance, from material use to energy efficiency.

Engineering Expertise

ZJA’s ability to integrate architecture with structural engineering from the conceptual stage allows us to develop buildings and infrastructure that are both visually striking and structurally optimized.

Sustainability & Efficiency

By combining computational and structural techniques, ZJA enhances the environmental performance of its projects, ensuring minimal waste and resource use.

Collaboration

ZJA works closely with multidisciplinary teams, including clients, engineers, and urban planners, to develop comprehensive solutions that meet functional and aesthetic goals.

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. Each project is a collective effort where every team member’s expertise is valued, and together we push the boundaries of design and innovation.

Computational Design

Leveraging algorithms and digital tools to explore innovative forms and solve complex design challenges.

Structural Engineering

Developing efficient, sustainable, and technically sound structural solutions.

Architectural Engineering

ZJA blends innovative technology and sustainability in architecture, prioritizing functional, aesthetic, and ecological designs.

Crowd Simulation

Enhancing design by optimizing pedestrian flow, safety, and accessibility in complex projects.

Urban Design

Master planning for dynamic, sustainable urban environments.

Zwarts & Jansma

ZJA is an architectural studio with an inventor’s mentality. Founded in 1990 by Moshé Zwarts and Rein Jansma, it started out with the name Zwarts & Jansma Bureau for architecture and product development. Before founding the bureau, Moshé was professor of construction methods in both Delft and Eindhoven. Rein was an autodidact with a fascination for the relationship between art, technology and science.

Designing by making

The bureau has never used drawing tables, since the rise of computing was immediately embraced and explored to its full extent. ZJA still designs by making. Construction and the creation of spaces – solving and designing – go hand in hand.

And because of the use of innovative technologies, such as computational design and AI, we can reduce extremely complex tasks to apparently simple solutions.

Research, testing, building and collaborating

On this website we therefore want to show more than simply beautiful images of completed projects. What makes our office unique is precisely the route we take to get there and how, during that creative quest for something that does not yet exist, we discover where the difficulties lie and come up with solutions that work.

Research, testing, building and collaborating are what ultimately results in all those projects of which, together with our clients and partners, we are so exceptionally proud.

Do you want to join us?