What is your role and what does it involve?

I’m the firm’s Technical Director, which essentially means I serve as lead designer and engineer. My primary responsibilities include assuring the overall quality of our design output and making sure all technical and engineering aspects are correct. This involves overseeing the engineering team, implementing processes to maintain design quality, and promoting the training and development of our staff. I aim to make sure everyone is up to speed on evolving technical innovations and has the skills needed to deliver our projects to the highest standard.

I’m also involved in resource allocation and team organisation, assigning the right people to the right projects to align skills with project needs. Beyond that, I act as a general source of advice and guidance for the team, answering tricky technical questions or simply offering broad shoulders! I still stay very hands-on with design projects, as I love designing and engineering. I aim to bring my experience to every project and serve as a helpful resource across the team.

Can you describe your career journey so far?

I started my career at Arup, a large multinational firm, before I even went to university. They sponsored me to study at the University of Bath, which had a very design-focused and multidisciplinary course. Working at Arup for 26 years (how time has flown!) gave me the opportunity to engage in an extraordinary and very varied portfolio of exciting projects across the world, collaborating closely with architects and multidisciplinary design teams and working at the forefront of technical innovation and design.

In 2016, I decided to leave Arup to try something different while my kids were still young. I set up my own small design-focussed firm to experience working at the opposite end of the industry scale and ran with that for six years before, in 2022, joining James and Alex at Jensen Hunt Design.

What has been your biggest achievement so far in your career?

Having been in the industry for a long time, it’s difficult to pinpoint just one achievement! In terms of projects, early in my career I worked on Portcullis House, the office building for Members of Parliament, which involved some fascinating materials like post-tensioned stone and aluminium bronze.

The first major project I led was the conversion of a Grade I-listed church into a concert hall for the London Symphony Orchestra. It was a challenging job— the church had a long history of settlement problems which had culminated in it being abandoned in the late 1950s, at which time the roof had been removed. We had to support a new heavy acoustic roof and designed an elegant steel tree structure to hold the roof up without loading the existing walls. 

I also worked on major projects like Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, where I spent five years designing the terminal buildings, and the National Museum of Qatar, a stunning and sculptural project known which evokes the form of a desert rose. It was so intricate that we ended up producing over a thousand drawings.

Another career highlight was the redevelopment of the Commonwealth Institute into a new home for the Design Museum, which won in its category at the Structural Awards.

That said, I sometimes feel my biggest achievements are less about specific projects and more about resilience—like running a small practice and keeping it afloat during the pandemic. Achievements happen at all ends of the scale!

What advice would you give to someone taking their first steps into the industry?

Nowadays, structural engineers need to be more than just structural engineers. We’re in a unique position to lead in areas like sustainability, energy, materials development, and beyond. Be open to tackling challenges beyond traditional structural design and stay adaptable.

Also, find interest in whatever you’re working on. Whether it’s the smallest detail of a residential extension or a large-scale project, there’s always something fascinating to uncover!

What do you think are the biggest challenges within the industry, and what can we do to address them?

The construction industry is one of the biggest creators of carbon and thus one of the biggest contributors to climate change.  We all need to move climate and energy to the top of our day-to-day agenda.  Some superb work is being done to identify and mitigate sources of carbon in construction materials and processes.  

As structural engineers, we should be working to minimise the environmental and societal impact of our designs with the same ingenuity that we’ve always applied to making our structures safe and economic. 

What is your biggest passion outside of work?

My family takes up a lot of my time outside work, as you can imagine with young kids.

When I do get some free time, I enjoy being outdoors—running, hiking, cycling—anything to stay active!

What’s something surprising that not many people know about you?

My mate’s dad’s cousin was Chewbacca!

Another surprising fact is that I appeared in a Channel 4 documentary about exhuming dead bodies, which was connected to the LSO church project I worked on. Oh, and I once climbed Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) twice in one day ‘cause, why not?

How would you describe yourself if you could only use three words?

Calm, collaborative, and creative