The Direction Set
Professor Ghaffarian sets one expectation for the School of Future Environments, which brings architecture, engineering and construction together with more than 100 academic and professional staff: its graduates, research and partnerships must make a measurable difference to how New Zealand designs, builds and maintains its environment. Every decision this year has been tested against that expectation, and he is clear that every decision to follow will be.
Programmes That Keep Pace With Practice
The School’s degrees lead to professional recognition. Architectural Engineering and Construction Engineering are accredited by Engineering New Zealand, the Bachelor of Construction by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the New Zealand Institute of Quantity Surveyors, and the School reports to the New Zealand Registered Architects Board. Those pathways will be protected without exception.
Accreditation, in the Head of School’s reading, defines what a graduate must be able to do and leaves the School free to decide how that capability is built. He intends to use that freedom deliberately, renewing what students learn, how they learn it and the problems they learn on, so that the programmes move with professional practice rather than with the review cycle.
Research Measured by Its Use
Publication in the leading journals of the School’s fields remains an expectation, but it is no longer the measure of success. The School’s research should inform the decisions of the firms, agencies, policymakers and communities it addresses, and it will be planned, supported and recognised with that end in view: earlier engagement with end users, closer working relationships with government and industry, and evidence of uptake recorded alongside citation.
The conviction comes from experience. Prof Ghaffarian’s advisory work with the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, MBIE, Royal Society Te Apārangi and BIMinNZ has shown him how directly well placed research can shape national guidance and professional practice. He wants that route open to every researcher in the School.
Artificial Intelligence Across the School
AI is already part of how students study and staff work. The task now is to make it a capability of the School rather than a habit of individuals: taught as a professional competence, governed with care in assessment and research, and used to improve how the School itself operates. The School’s research on intelligent buildings, digital twins and AI in construction gives that work a disciplinary base, and the Head of School’s seat on the PMCSA AI Reference Group keeps it close to national thinking on how AI should be adopted. The same reasoning shapes his view of the campus in What a University Building Should Do in an Age of AI.
Students and Staff
Student success sits at the centre of this direction. Graduates should leave ready for problems their degrees could not name in advance, and able to work across disciplines that practice too often keeps apart. That outcome depends on staff, which is why the School is investing in their professional development and growth. A School cannot ask more of its people without giving them the means to deliver it.
Where the School Stands
The start is strong. Architecture and Built Environment at AUT entered the QS World University Rankings by Subject for the first time in 2026, in the 201 to 260 band (first QS subject ranking). School sessions at AUT Live 2026 ran beyond room capacity. The GDI 2026 Industry Chapter brought more than 300 participants from industry, the professions and academia to the City Campus. Prof Ghaffarian intends to build on these results with the same clarity of purpose, and expects the School to be judged on the commitments set out here.