In this interview, Michael Drobnik - head of the Design Technologies department in Basel - explains why good data structures matter more today than the models themselves.
After studying architecture at TH Karlsruhe, Michael Drobnik worked in Amsterdam, New York, and Munich before joining Herzog & de Meuron in Basel as BIM manager in 2014; he has been an Associate there since 2020. He leads the Design Technologies team, which supports architectural projects with digital methods and tools. Over the years, he and his team have brought research initiatives into everyday practice, including extended reality (XR), bespoke early-design tools, and sustainability and performance simulations. From 2011 to 2014 he taught at the Chair of Architectural Informatics at TU Munich; he has also served as a programme commission member and lecturer at ETH Zurich.
