Climbing new mountains
Hi, I'm Brydon Wang. I've taken the plunge and started this blog to track my progress through the PhD programme at the University of Queensland (UQ). I'm a Technology and Construction Lawyer and used to practise architecture (I now teach in the Master of Architecture course). I've got a background in rail and roads (having previously worked with the Public Transport Authority in Perth, Western Australia, and Transurban in Sydney), and worked in the construction industry for seven years building a range of buildings (a satellite facility, a weather station, schools under the BER, refurbishment and new-builts to train stations, etc) before coming to the law.
As a lawyer, I've really enjoyed working on front-end matters (drafting Major Projects / Infrastructure agreements such as turbine supply agreements, EPC contracts, O&M agreements) and dabble a little with back-end work (construction disputes). I've advised a range of clients including Google, Samsung, Vodafone, nbn, GoldLinQ (light rail), Qtectic (heavy rail), Stadium Queensland (infrastructure delivery) and Acciona (renewable energy).
I'm passionate about cities—in fact, it's really how I stumbled into the PhD programme at UQ. I was wandering around the campus during Brisbane Open House 2017, when I saw that the Forgan Smith building was open for tours—so I went along to see how BVN had refurbished the law school... and decided this was where I'd like to work and grow over the next few years (funnily enough: I currently work in the BVN-designed 480 Queen in the city).
I'm excited about smart city technology (urbantech), infrastructure delivery and the new ways people can come together to live, work and play. While in architecture school, I spent some time researching marine utopian proposals from the '70's (these came about as a reaction to the oil shocks of the time), which led to co-editing a book on Large Floating Structures.
Research focus
What interests me (and what I hope this blog will capture) is this idea of how the law will (or should) respond to infrastructure and the urban fabric that are increasingly imbued or enhanced with technology (whether that's sensors or augmented reality).
I'm interested in the exercise and mediation of power through this sensorised building (which raises privacy and surveillance issues), and how this feeds into larger policy questions of law that pertain to smart cities. In this, I'm hoping that some of the theories I learnt in architecture school will help inform my understanding of the context and drivers of smart city-creation, and the potential impacts on the existing legal landscape.
I'm also interested in exploring the self-aware building and surveillance at the earlier stages of a building's lifecycle; this idea of machine superintendence. Consider a building that's aware of it's own construction process—that is then able to independently assess progress claims made by a contractor, certify and automate payments via smart contracts on the blockchain (security of payment), issue variations and extensions of time and other directions—this raises the question of how machine learning, machine vision and AI can come together to create a code that meets or exceeds the legal obligations of a superintendent under a construction contract.
How I'd like to use this blog
I plan to curate and post a selection of what I'm reading (mostly 'newsy' articles and op-eds, less journal articles and books); thoughts on architecture, law and the city; snippets of where I'm at with my thinking and life as a PhD student... and hopefully find a pattern in all of this and chart a course through my research interests, the conversation I'm having with my supervisor, and my journey to getting a PhD.
