Research Team

About

Jonathan Dortheimer is an architect, educator, researcher, and founder of the Architectural Artificial Intelligence Research Lab at Ariel University. His work examines how artificial intelligence, computational methods, and participatory technologies can support architectural design, urban planning, and more transparent decision-making.

Jonathan is a senior lecturer at the Ariel University School of Architecture and a guest scholar at the Chair of Architectural Informatics, Technical University of Munich in Germany.

He completed his doctoral studies in 2021 at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Eran Neuman and Prof. Tova Milo. He later worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Material Topology Research Lab at the Technion, in collaboration with the Future Automation Lab at Cornell Tech, under the supervision of Prof. Aaron Sprecher and Prof. Wendy Ju.

Jonathan’s research treats spatial design as a collective, technological, and political-cultural practice. He develops and evaluates tools for participatory design, urban AI, computational design methods, and urban digital twins. Across these areas, his work asks how AI can augment human judgment without replacing professional responsibility, public deliberation, or local knowledge.

Alongside his academic work, Jonathan has founded several technology initiatives and co-founded Meirim, a platform promoting democratic participation in urban planning in Israel. As a registered architect since 2008, he has designed built projects, participated in architectural competitions, and taught design, research methods, and programming at Tel Aviv University, the Technion, Ariel University, TU Munich, and Cornell Tech.