About

Dr Ian Weir (Ph.D) is a registered practising architect and an accomplished industrial designer who specialises in designing for biodiverse, bushfire prone landscapes.

Ian is registered as an Architect in WA, TAS, NSW, VIC & QLD.

He is co-author of AS3959-2018, the current nation-wide standard for Construction of Buildings in Bushfire Prone Areas.

Ian was formerly the Head of Landscape Architecture and principal research architect at Queensland University of Technology where he taught masters-level design studios and established Bushfire Resilient Building Design as an international field of applied research.  

Ian’s research and built designs have been acknowledged in international media including an exclusive 'profile' in the New York Times (April 2020). His building designs have also been featured on special episodes of ABC Television’s ‘The New Inventors’ and SBS ‘Insight’. In 2012 Ian was selected by the Australian Institute of Architects to represent innovative forms of practice at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Ian has designed homes and advised survivors of Victoria’s Black Saturday and NSW's Black Summer and has contributed to the Royal Commission into Black Saturday.

Ian’s expertise regarding the design of affordable housing for bushfire prone areas as been recognized with his appointment as an expert advisor to the Bushfire Building Council of Australia. He is the principal architect (concept design stage) of the BBCA's 'Fortis House'.

Ian is also an accomplished topographic land surveyor - skills developed in his PhD entitled Transformative Mappings, which investigated the applicability of using high-end land surveying technology for developing site-specific architecture in remote, biodiverse landscapes.

In 2001 Ian pioneered the use of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (LiDAR) in botanically rich, fire-prone heath landscapes - the first time this emerging technology was applied to the spatial measure of vegetation.

Follow this link for a profile on Ian in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/world/australia/australia-wildfires-b...