Day 12 - Technical University of Denmark
Copenhagen, Denmark
Tim McGinley | Associate Professor at DTU Department of Civil Engineering
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Day two in Denmark and I’m meeting with my final year university lecturer Tim McGinley. I like to think that Tim has had a profound impact to my approach to design and architecture. When I began his studio - Studio 09 at the University of South Australia - I’d just returned to study after a year hiatus and uncertainty of where I saw my individual pursuits in architecture taking me.
I’d also been working at Woods Bagot and expanding my knowledge of parametric workflows alongside the design technology teams. Tim’s studio, and the following Agile X workshops that took us to Rotterdam and Delft to test and develop agile potentials for the architectural process opened and freshened my eyes to how the theoretical and practical can merge to become something powerful. And positively new.
Tim is now based in Denmark and furthering his endeavours into industry paradigm shifts through the foci of engineering disciplines. A poignant note of our discussion was the importance of disciplines. Whether it be architectural, engineering or other, Tim emphasised the expertise that each bring to the formation and successful completion of projects and the importance of respect for their place within the process. Whilst this separation of disciplines is good, we discussed how this separation needs to be connected. And perhaps better connected that the current practical arrangement allows.
A potential conduit for this collaborative and connected engagement with the design process could lie within innovations of the Semantic Web and Linked Data principles. I will be meeting with a researching engineer at NIRAS over the coming days to delve deeper into how this extension of the World Wide Web can be integrated into the Building Information Modelling (BIM) process.
These points continue to frame Tim’s ongoing research. Blurring the line between software development and designer, frameworks are being developed that could allow for small ‘Formula-1’ teams to produce quick, resolved, and bespoke built-responses to client briefings - much like a race time pit stop - in a degree of efficiency yet to be experienced in the AEC industry.
Keep an eye out for the upcoming iteration of the Agile workshops in August, bringing together industry participants and students from Denmark, the UK, Singapore and Australia.