Dr Tim Ireland
BA(Hons), B(Arch), MSc, PgDip/ARB, PhD, PGCHE.
School of Architecture and Landscape
Lecturer in Digital Architecture
Full contact details
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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I started my career as architectural technician, before becoming an ARB registered architect. After working for several years in small-scale private and large-scale international practices in the UK and overseas I turned to focus on my interests in natural systems and computation. Awarded an EPSRC research grant in 2008 I completed my PhD (2013) in Architecture and Computational Design at the Bartlett, UCL.
Before joining the Sheffield School of Architecture and Landscape I was Senior Lecturer at the Kent School of Architecture & Planning, where I was Director of Digital Architecture, responsible for developing digital skills and enriching the schools digital culture. I designed and instigated the MSc Bio Digital Architecture programme, acting as Programme Director. And instigated and led DARC; the Digital Architecture Research Centre. I also led MArch Unit 5, which promoted a computational design logic through analogue methods.
Previously, I was Senior Lecturer at the Leicester School of Architecture where I taught design and theory at undergraduate and postgraduate level. I was Programme Leader of the MA Architecture course, through which I instigated the Motive Ecologies programme (a computational design initiative amalgamating architecture and computing with biological and semiotic theory) promoting computation and code as a means to stimulate a biological approach to architectural design thinking.
- Qualifications
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PGCHE Teaching in Higher Education
PhD Architecture & Computational Design
PgDip. Architectural Practice
MSc Architecture: Computing and Design
B(Arch) Architecture
BA (Hons) Architecture
- Research interests
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My research originates from an interest in how shape, form and structure arise in nature, how organisms interact with their environment, and construct niches to enhance their existence. This has led my research in two distinct directions:
- Theory: investigating how we think about space and questioning how we think about space influences how we make our place in the world. I consider that space is not physical but rather embodied and concomitant to perception. Consequently, space is a product of life and thus not a mechanism to define the universe but something particular and specific to the percipient, and therefore fundamental to quality of life.
- Practice: typical design and manufacturing processes tend to approach making through objective criteria, transforming one object into another through brute force methods that synthesize or mold matter. Rethinking space requires an approach that is decentralised, distributed and self-organising, to synthesise algorithmic and biological design thinking.
I would be happy to supervise PhD candidates in these areas or on topics of
Bio-Inspired design: computational methods concerned with generating morphologies, spatial configuration, performance-oriented design and bio fabrication.
Impact of geometry of environment on human health and wellbeing: assessing how forms of built environment affect people physiologically and psychologically.
Theoretical work conceptualising, representing and analysing space and spatiality.
Biosemiotics and information processes that direct and give form to matter: how morphologies are driven and directed by processes of communication and signification.
Studies of representation, meaning, sense-making, and sign processes: how habitats are created in terms of processes of signification, how this is embedded and perceived by others.
- Publications
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Books
- From Life to Architecture, to Life. Springer.
Journal articles
- Correction to: Beauty: Synthesis of Intellect and Senses Commentary on the Biosemiotic Fundamentals of Aesthetics. Biosemiotics, 15(2), 393-393.
- Introduction. Biosemiotics, 15, 187-192.
- Beauty : synthesis of intellect and senses commentary on The Biosemiotic Fundamentals of Aesthetics. Biosemiotics, 15(1).
- The fundamental problem of the science of information. Biosemiotics, 12(2), 213-244.
- Architecture, space and information in constructions built by humans and social insects: A conceptual review. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373(1753).
- Human distributed cognition from an organism-in-its-environment perspective. Biosemiotics, 10(2), 265-278.
- A teleonomic distributed cognition approach to architectural design. Technoetic Arts, 15(1), 15-34.
- The spatiality of being. Biosemiotics, 8(3), 381-401. View this article in WRRO
- Hacking design: Novelty and diachronic emergence. Architectural Theory Review, 17(1), 140-157.
Book chapters
- The Essence of Architectural Creation, Biosemiotics (pp. 47-112). Springer International Publishing
- Introduction, Biosemiotics (pp. 1-44). Springer International Publishing
- Computing Life and Architecture, Biosemiotics (pp. 189-260). Springer International Publishing
- Architecture is like a Language, Biosemiotics (pp. 113-186). Springer International Publishing
- Architecture and Life, Biosemiotics (pp. 335-383). Springer International Publishing
- A Biosemiotic Conception of Space, Biosemiotics (pp. 261-331). Springer International Publishing
- Leveraging nature to envision (functional) space: An architecture of machinic abduction, Visioning Technologies the Architectures of Sight (pp. 207-222).
- Naturalising Space In Merren C & Mlecek M (Ed.), PERCEPTION in Architecture: HERE and NOW (pp. 38-46). Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Conference proceedings
- Some spatial experiments: student work exploring intersections between computing, biological and semiotic theory through architecture. Digital Design Reconsidered - Proceedings of the 41st Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe 2023), Vol. 1 (pp 21-30). Graz, Austria, 20 September 2023 - 20 September 2023. View this article in WRRO
- Design and analysis of moment-resisting nature-inspired-design structure using graphic statics methods. Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia, IASS 2020/21 Surrey Symposium: WG21: Design competition. Online View this article in WRRO
- Bateson information revisited: a new paradigm. Proceedings: IS4SI 2019 Summit, Vol. 47(1). Berkeley, CA, USA, 2 June 2019 - 6 June 2019.
- Teaching architecture students to code Thrills and spills. Proceedings of the International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, Vol. 1 (pp 363-372)
- A cell-Inspired model of configuration. ACADIA 2105: Computational Ecologies: Design in the Anthropocene [Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)], Vol. 2015-October (pp 137-147). Cincinnati, OH, USA, 19 October 2015 - 19 October 2015. View this article in WRRO
- An Artificial Life Approach to Configuring Architectural Space. eCAADe proceedings, Vol. 2 (pp 581-590), 16 September 2015 - 18 September 2015.
- Stigmergic planning. ACADIA 10: LIFE in:formation, On Responsive Information and Variations in Architecture [Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)] (pp 183-189). New York, NY, USA, 21 October 2010 - 21 October 2010. View this article in WRRO
- Emergent space diagrams: The application of swarm intelligence to the problem of automatic plan generation. Joining Languages Cultures and Visions Caadfutures 2009 Proceedings of the 13th International Caad Futures Conference (pp 245-258)
- Sniffing space II: The use of artificial ant colonies to generate circulation patterns in buildings. Joining Languages Cultures and Visions Caadfutures 2009 Proceedings of the 13th International Caad Futures Conference (pp 214-227)
- Space Diagrams The Problem of Spatial Arrangement and the Automatic Generation of Architectural Plans. Proceedings of the International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (pp 91-98)
- Form follows function: Activity defines function, gesticulates space. eCAADe proceedings (pp 298-301), 6 September 2009 - 9 September 2009.
- An analysis of the poly-dimensionality of living an experiment in the application of 3-dimensional self-organising maps to evolve form.. Proceedings of the International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (pp 449-455)
- From Life to Architecture, to Life. Springer.
- Teaching interests
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Design Studio, Design Theory, Computational Design.