Tim McCarthy is the Director of the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre at the University of Wollongong. He holds a Bachelor and PhD degree in Civil Engineering from University College Cork, and a Masters in Offshore Structures from Cranfield University. Having worked in Ireland, France, UK and California he was appointed to the Chair of Structural Steel and Design at UOW in 2004. He was a member of the bid team in 2009 that won the $25million grant from the Commonwealth Government to establish the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre. The SBRC Building, designed by Joe Agius of Cox Architecture, was officially opened in 2014 and is Australia’s first and only fully accredited Living Building under the International Living Futures Institute certification. It is also a six star Green Star design.
Tim was Head of School of Civil Mining and Environmental Engineering from 2018-2021. His research in Australia has concentrated on Ecologically Sustainable Structural Design. His work aims to improve the carbon footprint of construction materials and apply circular economy in construction. He led the Construction team at UOW which won the Solar Decathlon China competition in 2013. In November 2018 he led Team UOW’s second Solar Decathlon entry in Dubai where the Desert Rose solar powered house came second overall. Tim is currently leading projects on renewable energy, low carbon building materials, the sustainability of prefabricated construction and, circular economy in the built environment.
The SBRC collaborated with Cox Architecture to undertake a study “Celebrating 10 years of enduring performance at the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre” which include a comparative post occupancy survey of the building users.