Leveraging nearly 15 years of industry experience as a mechanical engineer, Dan creates innovative design solutions to mitigate environmental impact while supporting practical and human needs. This passion translates into sustainable development and integrated collaborative design processes, which provide life-cycle and construction-cycle benefits to clients. This passion has also led to his recognition in the wider community, notably with Construction Canada, which recently honoured him with the Emerging Leader Award for Technology Advancement. With 13 years of experience in HVAC and plumbing systems design, he focuses on sustainable buildings and high-performance system design. Dan’s portfolio spans typologies from post-secondary education and healthcare to industrial and residential. Projects of note include the Surrey City Centre Library, UBC Student Union Building, University of Victoria Engineering Precinct Expansion, and the Shipyards Lot 5 Development.
What is your dream project (any budget, any place, any sector)?
My favourite projects tend to be public facing academic/institutional/civic buildings with a very high sustainability aspiration because that usually lends to working with more novel combinations of building systems and passive design strategies, even better when all of this gets expressed in the architecture.
What is the first thing you ever designed? What was it and how old were you?
I’m not sure about design, but my first physics analysis was arguably at age 2-1/2, when I rejected my father’s simplified answer to my earnest questioning “how does it fly?” while watching a Boeing 747 rumble in on final landing approach at YVR airport. “It flies using the wind,” was entirely unacceptable to me given the windless quality of the day, and so I learned about velocity pressure and aerodynamic lift on that day.
Of all the DIALOG projects that have had a significant positive impact on the wellbeing of our communities/environment, which inspires you most?
I worked on the Shipyards Lot 5 development in North Vancouver for a few years through design and construction, and I was living in that neighborhood during design and construction. Every time I visit that site today, it is bustling with energy and people taking advantage of the site amenities, no matter the season. I don’t think I’ve been part of another project that has had such a consistent activating presence in a neighborhood.
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering
University of Victoria
Master of Applied Science, Mechanical Engineering
University of Victoria
