Henri Achten studied architecture at Eindhoven University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, from 1986-1992. He graduated on the design of a museum of history in Venlo, the Netherlands. He was the first graduate student in the Netherlands to use Virtual Reality in the presentation of his project. From 1992-1997 he did his PhD on knowledge encoding in drawings, under guidance by Professor Thijs Bax and Professor Robert Oxman. From 1998-2000 he was post-doc researcher at the newly formed Design Systems Group with Professor Bauke de Vries, from where continued as assistant professor until 2010. Since 2005 he was assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague. In 2007 he obtained habilitation for associate professor (docent), and in 2018 was appointed professor. Leading several design studios since 2005, he was appointed head of design studio in 2015.
Henri Achten has performed several international functions. Since 1995 he is member of the European Association for Education and research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe). He was vice-president from 2001-2005, and president of the association from 2005-2009. In 2012 he was co-organiser with Dana Matějovská of the 30th eCAADe conference in Prague. He is reviewer for several international journals, and has served as chair in many international conferences.