Aya Riad is a computational architect, design researcher, artist and educator. She is the co-founder and chief architect of Shift+Space Design & Research; an experimental design studio positioned at the intersection of architecture, robotics, emergent technologies, and art. The studio's work dives into interactive, participatory design that begins from the person and expands to the surrounding environment. She is a Lecturer of Advanced Computational Design at the Ajman University (AU) in the UAE. She is also the Middle East Regional Manager at DigitalFUTURES; a global, educational, accessible initiative with a particular emphasis on the latest computational design and fabrication technologies.
She is a Master's graduate (M.Arch. Design Research Lab) from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London where she worked on the research of self-assembling, behavioral, robotic, design systems that aimed to provide an alternative approach for living, that extended on the ideas of materially and geometrically elastic, endless and ever-evolving architecture She is currently focusing on finding a relationship between materials, form, and behavioral interactive systems to generate an empathetic relationship between humans and their environment to explore the potential for how simulated empathy could blur the harsh boundaries between machine-human ecologies and develop a state of harmonious co-existence and companionship.