Portfolio · 2026
Forty years of checking structures. Now teaching them to check themselves.
I'm Dene Warren — Chartered Civil & Structural Engineer, MSc Building Information Modelling Management (Distinction). I design, write and research the boundary between heavy civils and computational 3D models.
At a glance
A consultant, a lecturer, a researcher.
Flagship · 2019 → ongoing
BIM models that check themselves.
My MSc dissertation at Middlesex University asked a deceptively simple question: can a parametric BIM model check itself against the rules we already have written down? The answer — partially, and the gap is where the interesting work lies.
Published in the International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering (2020) and presented at the WIT International BIM Conference in Seville (2019), the work quantifies the productivity gain of rule-based checking and — more usefully — exposes where rule-based checking falls down.
Those weaknesses are the launchpad for the next chapter: generative AI as a checking partner, not a replacement.
Read the case studySelected experience
Built, signed, delivered.
- 2015–2017
Wimbledon Substation Redevelopment
Team & Design Manager · multi-discipline · GIS, 8 supergrid TX, 2 shunt reactors
- 2010–2015
National Grid Flood Defence Programme
Principal designer for 100+ substations — Phase I & II
- 2014–2016
HVDC Western Link (NG / SSE JV)
Design assurance · Flintshire Bridge converter + 30 km onshore DC cable
- 2010–2015
CNI Enhanced Security Fencing
Lead design assurance across 30 substations
- 2013
Hinksey GIL Connection
Design coordination · XLPE vs GIL route study, Oxford
- 1998–2007
D R Warren Associates (self-employed)
Industrial, education, listed buildings · structural & civil design
GenAI Roadmap
“Rule-based checking made the model faster to interrogate. Generative AI should make it understandable — from natural-language specs all the way to a defensible compliance report.”
DRW · GenAI Roadmap, 2026