Zeyka.ai

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Cell of Amity School of Architecture and Planning Noida and Amity School of Design, Amity University, Noida organized a guest lecture for B. Arch. and B. Des. students on March 20, 2025 on "𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗨𝗣 𝗦𝗬𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗚𝗬: 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 & 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻". Ar. Yug Aggarwal (Founder and CEO at Zeyka.ai) delivered an insightful session on tech-driven startups in architecture and design. He highlighted the impact of AI and automation in streamlining workflows, enhancing efficiency, and addressing industry challenges. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 1. AI-driven rendering and automated bill of quantities enhance design accuracy and efficiency. 2.  Experiencing live demo of Zeyka.ai’s real-time rendering and cost calculation features. 3. Discussion on inflation impacts and rate fluctuations as per industry-standard pricing databases in BOQ generation. 4. Valuable knowledge about business models, funding strategies and scaling techniques, equipped with practical insights for future entrepreneurial ventures. #StartupSynergy #TechInArchitecture #AIinDesign #Zeyka #Entrepreneurship #InnovationInDesign #AmityUniversity #AmityASAP #AmitySchoolofDesign #ArchitectureStartups #DesignTech #RealTimeRendering #BOQAutomation #TechDrivenEntrepreneurship #IndustryCollaboration #FutureOfArchitecture

Here’s how I won the world’s most prestigious student competition at the World Architecture Festival (WAF), Singapore: The course curriculum at architecture school never quite captured my interest. It wasn’t long before I stopped going to class altogether. And instead spent most of my time working on various design competitions. By the time I got to my fourth year, I’d already participated in 50+ competitions. I’d won a couple of smaller ones. But I hadn’t managed to crack any of the really cool ones. Until we got shortlisted for the coveted Student Charette at WAF, in association with Perkins&Will. We were competing with student teams from Spain, Vietnam, Singapore, UK, Philippines and Indonesia. So, how did I win the Student Charette at WAF 2015? BY FLUKE! It’s true. We won by fluke. Mostly anyway. We just got very lucky. Why do I say that? Because the night before the presentation, everything was in shambles. Our team had a big fight. We were split into 2 factions. With very different ideas of what to present the next morning. We were screaming at each other. Calling each other names. We were a mess. I was convinced we were going to make a fool of ourselves big time. By the morning, things got so heated that one faction refused to even attend the team presentation. While the other faction took the stage to present the proposal. The presentation started. And it was a nightmare. My friend- one of the most confident speakers I know, started fumbling on stage, big time. He was going round and round in circles. With only 2 minutes left, all hope seemed lost. One of the jurors was literally yawning. It was so painful. But then something changed! For context, our site was Bhopal’s Tajul Masjid precinct. It had three cascading lakes in its periphery. Our idea was to build a memorial 100 feet under one of the lakes as a means to regenerate the lake and its surroundings! In the final 2 minutes, my friend somehow got his shit together. And began explaining the thought behind the memorial. He said something along the lines of… “Imagine an elevator that takes you 100 feet deep underwater. You feel more anxious with each passing second, as you transcend deeper and deeper into the water. But as soon as you submit to that feeling, you enter a grand space, 100 feet underneath the lake.” He said it with so much passion and conviction, that someone in the audience actually started clapping! The yawning juror snapped right back to his senses. And the other jurors were simply blown away. And just like that, out of literally nowhere, we won! Winning the Student Charette at WAF 2015, and attending the gala dinner with great architects like Mr. Sanjay Puri, was one one of the highlights of my college life. As a team, we also knew better than to turn on each other, when we came back as defending champions the next year, at WAF Berlin.

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve signed an MOU with Pearl Academy to integrate Zeyka.ai- my AI interior design software in all their courses! Recently, we had our first faculty demo call. Zeyka.ai is an ultra easy-to-use design software that helps design enterprises save 50% time. How? By offering BOQs & 3D renders in just 10 seconds! It was my great privilege to have some of the brightest minds in interior design education share their thoughts on Zeyka.ai. Faculty from all Pearl Academy campuses pan India- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Jaipur were present. The session was 2 hours long. Here are 2 of my favourite moments from the session: #1. Ms. Kavita Fatarpekar, Associate Professor offered a fantastic insight. She highlighted how when designers are sitting with clients, often, there are lots of changes in terms of layouts and materials. She was blown away by Zeyka.ai’s ability to help designers tell their clients that if a particular change was made, that’s how much it would cost, and how it would look, in real-time! #2. Ms. Nidhi Bindal, Associate Professor asked a super insightful question. Citing the example of a shutter, she explained how a shutter is basically plywood. With a laminate on top. And edge bending. She wanted to understand if Zeyka.ai took all those components into account while making the BOQ. We realized that Zeyka.ai’s BOQ was limited to only material finishes. And within 1 week, my team, led by the extraordinary Vipul Takkar, have built Zeyka.ai’s BOQ feature to account for everything! And I mean literally everything- wastages, labour costs, underlying base materials, etc. I’d like to thank Mr. Maurizio Grioli, Pearl Academy’s visionary Dean, and Prof (Dr.) Preetha Ravi Sree Sajin, Associate Dean for their unconditional support. I’m on a mission to make Zeyka.ai the industry norm in the next 3 years. I look forward to the day when every last interior designer & architect in India is using Zeyka.ai as part of their daily design workflow.

To the Council of Architecture - India, I talked to 150+ students. Do you know on average, architecture interns get paid ₹7,100 a month? That’s ₹10,966 less than the minimum wage for unskilled labour in New Delhi. Did you know that an architectural intern is paid about ₹7,100 a month, on average? Meanwhile, the minimum wage for unskilled labour in Delhi is set at ₹18,066. Now, I’m not gonna say all those things about how architectural internships are bad. And f*cking toxic in every sense. And that they basically suck. We all know that. So I’m gonna skip that part. All I’m saying is, that during an internship, your average intern gets paid about ₹7,100 a month. Which is basically like, 2.5X lesser than the unskilled labour minimum wage in Delhi. Isn’t that f*cking appalling? Now, the Council of Architecture - India is the body that regulates architectural education and professional practice in India, right? That means the Council of Architecture - India’s core job is to prescribe and monitor the standards of design education in India. And yet, that same body conveniently claims that internships, a mandatory part of any Bachelors of Architecture curriculum, do not fall under their purview. How does that make any f*cking sense? An internship is the first time ever that a young architect is exposed to what the field actually looks like. Based on the dangerous, harmful, archaic "master-apprentice" ideology, these 3 things capture what architectural internships look and feel like: 1. Super long hours. Sometimes Sundays working too. 2. Meagre stipends. Sometimes unpaid. Sometimes you need to pay an architect to f*cking get one! 3. Super toxic work culture. Walking on eggshells. Being constantly yelled at. Menial tasks. Next level criticism. Insanely unprofessional. No real dignity in the workplace.  Now imagine that you’re a young, enthusiastic architecture student stepping out into the field for the very first time… In 45 years, India’s regulatory body on architectural education has failed to make any formal rules whatsoever around internships. Can you believe it? And these guys have like a proper, lengthy f*cking Code of Conduct. I mean, they literally have rules about the lamest things your mind could possibly come up with. But internships? The intersection between practice and education? Nope. No rules. India's governing body for architects has ZERO guidelines on architectural internships.  Honestly, I think it's pretty f*cking scary. The Council of Architecture - India needs to stop destroying the careers of young architects. Do you also think that after 45 years of doing nothing, it’s finally time for the Council of Architecture - India to wake up? And regulate architectural internships? Tell me in the comments. Also, tell me more about your own internship experiences, as both students and employers!

1 life-changing experience that led a regular architect like me to build Zeyka.ai- my AI interior design software startup: I’m Yug, an architect. And this is my story… Back in 2020, I was working at Innovatione India Projects LLP. It’s a 400 crore turnover design & build enterprise. They make offices for clients like Amazon, Google, Nestlé & Table Space My boss had just started the company’s design arm. And entrusted me as the studio head. At Innovatione, we’d get only 60-90 days to design & build offices as large as 2 Lakh sq. ft. After 6 months of relentless work, I realized something. Our design process was insanely inefficient: #1. Long time to get sign offs from clients: Lots of design revisions. Slow feedback cycles. Aligning many stakeholders. #2. Manually making BOQs: Manually calculating quantities on CAD. Manually making BOQs on Excel. Manually revising BOQs in case of changes. #3. Creating 3D renders and finding matching materials: Creating 3Ds using textures from Google, Pinterest. Manually browsing through catalogues for similar looking materials. #4. Insanely high rendering times: 3-4 hours to create 1 render. Hard to use software. 1-2 internal revisions. 3-4 revisions from the client’s side. Re-render. One day, I had an idea. What if I had a vast digital catalogue of all the materials in the market? Prices, photos, specs, everything. And what if I could connect that vast digital library to my design software? How would this help? Designing directly with all the materials in the market would do 2 things: #1. Give me a BOQ on day one. #2. Give me 3Ds, embedded with the actual materials, on day one. And what if… I could get both these things in 10 seconds? This would solve all my problems! #1. Need faster sign-offs from clients? Just sit with them during meetings. And pick and choose what they like from my digital library. Tell them how much something will cost. And how it’ll look. In real-time. Get approvals on the spot! #2. Manually making BOQs? Just add materials & products to your design. And get a 100% accurate, automated, self-updating BOQ. On the go. In real-time. #3. Creating 3D renders and finding matching materials? If I’m directly designing with real-world materials, why on earth would I ever need to do this shit again?! #4. Super high rendering times on hard to use software? 4K renders in 10 seconds. Drag and drop everything. Like a video game. This meant that I could potentially reduce my design time from 15 to 5 days. Saving 10 days per project meant massive time and cost savings! Soon, I began looking for such a design software in the market. But in 4 months I never found one. So I decided to build it! My boss was very supportive of me. And together we began building an MVP. When I realized the impact my idea could have on the industry, I couldn’t look beyond it. So I quit my job. And founded Zeyka.ai- my AI interior design software startup!

Here’s how I won Asia’s biggest green building design competition- the FuturArc Prize. And became the first Indian team to do so. It was 2019. It had been over a year since I’d graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. I was working in an architecture firm in Bangalore. Spending most of my days working on mind-numbing toilet detail drawings. One day I came across a call for entries for something called the FuturArc Prize. And the thrill and excitement of participating in a design competition came rushing back to me. The task was to select a site in an Asian city. And redesign it to accommodate at least 100,000 people. The redesigned neighbourhood needed to: 1. Produce its own food and water 2. Offer inclusive, accessible public space 3. Be mindful of the flora and fauna around Here’s the strategy I used to get to third place in the professional category of the FuturArc Prize 2019: I studied my jury- in and out. The jury comprised mostly academicians. I dove into their academic work. I identified keywords, philosophies and influences. And subtly tweaked my design to resonate with their intellectual and aesthetic leanings. We became the first Indian team in the history of the competition to secure third place! Here are 3 other things I did to make a winning entry: #1. Choosing a complex site with socio-economic, environmental and cultural dimensions: We chose a stretch of land between a 200 feet tall landfill and the most polluting sewer, in Delhi. #2. A compelling narrative: We came up with an audacious plan to restore the landfill as a bird sanctuary. Yes! A f*cking bird sanctuary. And provide housing for the marginalized rag pickers on site. It made for an insane narrative! #3. Amazing 3D renders and well composed sheets: The 3D renders and graphics my team prepared for the FuturArc Prize were easily some of the best I’ve ever created. Winning the FuturArc Prize, and flying to Bangkok to get an award and a cash prize, remains one of my most prized achievements. It was also the first time I ever made money working for myself!

Recently, I presented Zeyka.ai- my AI interior design software at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee to 100+ interior designers & architects. Zeyka.ai is an ultra easy-to-use design software that helps design enterprises save 50% time. How? By offering BOQs & 3D renders in just 10 seconds! How? By enabling them to design directly with real-world interior materials in the market. From day one of the design process. The session was an hour long. I’d structured it as a 10-minute presentation. Followed by a 30-minute demo. While reserving the last 20 minutes for QA. Here are 2 of my favourite moments from the session: #1. A practicing architect came up to me after the session. He told me that Zeyka.ai wasn’t just a software. It was like having an entire team! #2. A particularly critical audience member bombarded me with a ton of “feedback”. He wanted me to build an array of new features into Zeyka.ai. I simply asked him that if I were to build all that, how much would he be willing to pay? He wasn’t willing to pay much. And ultimately claimed how Zeyka.ai had no real USP. Before I could speak, a woman in the front seat turned towards him. And began to passionately defend my product! She explained how every time a client wanted to change something, Zeyka.ai would help her to instantly tell clients how much a particular change would cost. And how it would actually look in their space. This would help her get approvals on the spot, in the meeting itself. And significantly enhance decision making. Ultimately, helping her save time and money. Witnessing this woman, who I had never seen before in my life, defend Zeyka.ai so passionately, was truly amazing! I’d like to thank Ms. Nidhi Bindal, Associate Professor of interior design at Pearl Academy, for inviting us to the event. Stepping into an IIT classroom and talking to a room full of designers, was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve had as a speaker.

Recently, I found that the Council of Architecture - India wants architects to stop sharing their work on Social Media. Isn’t that f*cking insane? Ask any architect how they get clients. Most will tell you 2 things. The first? Word of mouth. The second? Instagram. As architects, we’re not taught anything related to marketing in architecture school. But even we know that not having a social media presence in the digital age, is the stupidest thing one can do. On 4th May, 2022, the Council of Architecture - India released this wild, absolutely ridiculous little document. Where the Council of Architecture - India's ex President, Mr. HABEEB KHAN is asking architects to stop advertising on social media. Here are 3 highlights from the document: #1. If you’re found advertising your services on social media to get work, you’re gonna face legal action. Yep. You heard me. It’s a blatant f*cking threat. Right to all our faces. #2. You can however exhibit your name outside your office. Or a building that’s under construction. Or one that’s completed. Provided the lettering of your name does not exceed 10 cm in height. Yay, marketing! #3. You can also let your name appear in the telephone directory/website. The telephone directory? Are you f*cking serious? I asked my father who’s nearing 60. And he said that the last time he opened the telephone directory was back in 1997! When I read this document, I couldn’t believe my eyes. As far as I’m concerned, this is batshit crazy is what it is. Do you think the Council of Architecture - India asking you to not promote your work on social media is justified? Wanna have a look at the original, signed Council of Architecture - India document? Comment “COA” and I’ll DM it to you right away!

Here’s how I won the world’s most respected student competition at World Architecture Festival (WAF): The year was 2016. The place was Berlin. I was 22 years old. And in my final year at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. This was my second time participating in the prestigious Student Charette at the World Architecture Festival. We were defending champions. Having won WAF’s Student Charette the previous year in Singapore. There was no way I was losing it to another team this year. It was my final year at college. And I wanted to go out with an absolute bang! We were competing with teams from some of the top design schools globally, like the National University of Singapore, Amherst College and more. But ultimately, they never stood a chance against us. We were that good! Here’s the strategy I used to win the Student Charette at WAF 2016: We knew our jury- in and out. We studied the jury- their tastes, design philosophies, sense of aesthetics. And subtly aligned our vision with theirs, while maintaining our originality. In 2016, one of the most prominent jurors on the panel was the late Sir Will Alsop (aLL Design). One of the most striking features about his designs was his love for bold, vibrant colours. Keeping in line with our juror’s taste, we decided to feature a bold splash of red on a key building on our site. When he paused at our slide and spent 10 whole seconds just admiring the red building, we knew we’d struck gold! We turned the most influential juror on the panel into a “champion”. And let him convince the other jurors on our behalf. And guess what? We won! For the second time in 2 years! Winning the Student Charette at the World Architecture Festival was one of my most prized achievements. It’s something that gets me all excited, even when I think about it today. Here are a couple of other things my team did to win: 1. Choosing a complex site with socio-economic, environmental and cultural dimensions. 2. Quality is non-negotiable. Our drawings and 3D renders were on-point. 3. A well composed presentation and a compelling narrative.

Recently, I found that the Council of Architecture - India is the reason why architects fail to build big businesses. Building a business is hard. As an architect, it’s even harder. Because you’re not really taught anything about business in architecture school. But that’s not why Indian architects fail to build big businesses. It’s because of the Council of Architecture - India. You heard me. The COA is the body responsible for regulating architectural practice & education in India. Here are 4 ways in which the Council of Architecture - India ensures you will NEVER be successful: #1. Do you know how businesses acquire customers? The answer is simple. By marketing themselves. Imagine if you couldn't market yourself at all… How would you possibly grow your business? The COA has something called the Code of Conduct. It’s an archaic and highly irrelevant document that seems to have been designed to only f*ck over the already disenfranchised architects. It states that architects registered with the COA cannot advertise their services. Isn’t that insane? #2. Architects cannot partner with non-architects. Let's say you wanted to establish a multi-disciplinary practice. Where one of your co-founders has a background in finance. Or sales. Or marketing. All super important elements to effectively grow a business. You cannot do that. Absolutely ridiculous, don’t you think? #3. I recently found out that architects cannot float a company and get money from non-architect investors. Did you know that >85% of architects in India are first generation? That means that the COA have left young designers with no way but to self finance their businesses. That also means that you have no hope to reach the pre-qualification level required for large public projects happening in the country. F*cking bleak, right? #4. Who is an architect? Is an architect a professional who designs buildings? Plans spaces? Supervises construction? Engages with multiple stakeholders like clients, contractors and consultants to deliver beautiful, meaningful spaces that enrich the lives of its users? Not according to the Council of Architecture - India. The COA defines an “architect” simply as someone with a license issued by the COA. That’s right. Not someone who designs spaces or buildings! That’s the core reason why they lost that infamous 2020 Supreme Court ruling. And the reason why architecture in India cannot be exclusively practiced by architects anymore. Meanwhile, unregistered persons practicing as “design consultants” can: 1. Advertise themselves. Endorse products, etc. 2. Partner with non-architects 3. Raise money from investors and join the valuation game Do you think the Council of Architecture - India's Code of Conduct helps your design studio/architecture firm in any way? Tell me in the comments.