Zaha Hadid Architects will now trade as ZHA after the Court of Appeal overruled a 2024 High Court ruling over use of the Hadid name. Patrik Schumacher said the practice will also be registered as ZHA Architects Ltd. The change follows a licensing dispute that had kept the name in place after Zaha Hadid died in 2016.
Patrik Schumacher on Zaha
Schumacher said in a video published with the practice’s Instagram post: “This is 10 years after Zaha’s passing. We feel it’s a very natural brand evolution to move to a more collective identity”. He added: “Of course, we love Zaha and we have been working with her, the leadership and myself, of course for many decades, collaborating and working on these projects but she’s no longer with us - in spirit only - and we have a lot of new projects coming out.”
He also described architecture as “fluid and adaptive” and said the practice is “a collective of many talents, with a shared purpose, a shared set of values, and that’s what we want to express”.
The Court of Appeal ruling
The Court of Appeal overruled the High Court in March this year and said the agreement could not have been intended as a perpetual arrangement. That left the practice free to change the name it had used under a trade mark licence from the Zaha Hadid Foundation.
The refreshed website now carries a statement saying the group had “previously traded under a trade mark licence from the Zaha Hadid Foundation”. The practice said the change comes “as the final projects led by our founder near completion”.
£21.4m and ZHA Architects Ltd
The licence required the practice to pay a portion of its turnover to the Zaha Hadid Foundation. Between 2018 and 2024, that arrangement cost the practice £21.4m.
Schumacher said the business would trade as ZHA and be registered as ZHA Architects Ltd. That makes the rebrand both a corporate and legal change, not just a new public-facing name. For clients and other counterparties, the working name is now ZHA while the company registration follows under ZHA Architects Ltd.
