Café Zai: Intelligence for Informed Environments

Paul calls himself a “recovering architect,” but that’s underselling it. He’s been quietly shaping the smart city and metaverse discourse for decades, while most of us were still arguing about CAD vs BIM. In this session, we go full-circle: from the DNA of IBM trade show booths in the ’80s… to AI hallucinations, smart contracts, digital twins, and fractional real estate coins tied to building perf...

Ana Thiemer, Director of Operations Support at UT Austin, joins me for a powerful 20-minute conversation on Total Cost of Ownership, what it really means, where we’ve made progress, and what still needs to change. Ana doesn’t sugarcoat it:There’s no easy button. TCO is a culture shift, not just a calculation. And sometimes 3 data points are better than 9. From tracking costs on new construction vs...

From rolled drawings in the basement… to talking to your building.” In this new episode of Café ZAi , I meet with longtime friend and early BIM pioneer Russ Sanders , now VP of Design Integration at McCarthy . Russ is leading some of the most complex projects in the Southwest, including major healthcare builds and terminal expansion work at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, while collabora...

In this Café ZAi session, Kimon Onuma meets with Finith Jernigan, author of BIG BIM little bim , for a fast-paced, insightful conversation on the state of architecture, BIM, and the rise of AI. They revisit the early promise of BIM, the persistent challenges of a document-driven industry, and how today's AI boom is echoing the same misconceptions and missed opportunities. Finith shares the origin...

Episode 01 | Deke Smith: From First Cost to Total Cost At Café Zai, conversations spark change. In this premiere episode, Deke Smith brings decades of insight to the table. A longtime advocate for BIM, digital twins, and total cost of ownership, Deke shares hard truths about why the built environment keeps falling short. From the roots of outdated business processes to the misuse of AI and the myt...

Café ZAi is now open. The built environment is cracking under pressure. Climate, cost, AI, infrastructure, meaning. It’s all happening at once. So we’re opening a café. Not a conference. Not a webinar. Just 20-minute conversations between industry leaders who are doing the work. Owners, planners, builders, policymakers, technologists, artists, and thinkers, all sitting down at the same table. This...

Café Zai is a 20-minute podcast where urgent conversations meet real action. Hosted by architect and systems thinker Kimon Onuma, FAIA, each episode brings together doers and disruptors from architecture, digital twins, BIM, GIS, AI, semantics, and beyond, all sitting at the same virtual table. No slides. No scripts. Just sharp dialogue and real work behind the scenes. From digital twins to standa...