Mark is a Chartered Engineer, with 19 years in the Building Industry: 15 in engineering consulting + 4 years in the design, manufacturing and installation of innovative facade systems.
He is currently Director at Thorp Precast, passionate about developing beautiful, sustainable and safe buildings. Responsible for the delivery of high quality structural solutions, ensuring alignment between design, manufacturing, and site operations. Driving complex consultative sales, technical innovation and sustainability.
Formerly Head of the UK Building Specialist Division, at Ramboll, on the Buildings Board of Directors (Ramboll Ltd). Managed the P&L, growth and integration of over 50 engineering professionals across disciplines as diverse as Facades, Acoustics, Sustainable Solutions, Fire, Advanced Simulation, Computational Design, Vertical Transport and the digital start-up.
MBA thesis on introducing and scaling innovation into the market, based on live case studies while on the Ramboll Global Digital & Innovation team and Global Innovation Accelerator Selection Committee.
Q: How did your journey in façade engineering begin and what initially sparked your interest in the field?
A: Façade engineering sparked my interest as a place where art and science intersect. I enjoy walking the tightrope between form and function. In my interview to join Whitbybird back in 2006, I wasn’t asked to size a beam, but to describe my favourite architect and why. This kicked off a journey serving architecture and its inhabitants, first as a structural engineer, then in increasingly multidisciplinary roles, until my curiosity finally settled me into facades, which I often joke is the most generalist specialism, due to the interplay of multiple disciplines such as solid mechanics, thermodynamics, acoustics and material science to name a few. I was lucky to meet people who supported my journey and owe a lot to those who took a bet on me early in my career.
Q: Having worked in both the Consultancy and Contractor sectors, what do you wish each sector knew about each other, and what knowledge or skills have you been able to take from one to the other?
A: Consulting is like being a chef, and a contractor a butcher. Whilst I used to dream up tasty recipes for my clients, I feel I now know how the sausages are made. As a consultant you are trying to satisfy the pallet of your client and provide a “nutritious and delicious” façade solution. Being a contractor you need to actually transform the raw ingredients into the finished product, which can involve “unsexy” steps that are often overlooked in schematic design (such as lifting and handling or temporary works). The best consultants I know have some practical grounding and respect buildability considerations. The best contractors often have a strong in-house technical team and can respect the nuances of a specification. When they work together from a position of respect rather than hostile arrogance, magic can happen.
Q: What is the project you are most proud of, and why?
A: I’ve been lucky to work on a wide range of projects, and whilst there have been some whacky international schemes I got involved in as a consultant, the best projects are often those closer to home that actually get built. Elephant and Castle Town Centre in London comprised three towers clad in brick faced UHPFRC and we proved that we could make it just as light as the original rainscreen concept the super-structure was designed for. Furthermore, we justified the onerous acoustic requirement through testing at Vinci, which was a satisfying challenge. Currently we are building a large residential scheme at St. Johns Wood Square, and whilst this is more traditional RC, developing a solution with RBG and Farrat to manage deflection and joint sizes across a building on vibration isolation pads so it still looks like hand-set stone and brick has been a great adventure.
Q: Given your experience in the precast, what emerging trends or innovations in the industry do you foresee?
A: I’m delighted to see continued enthusiasm for mineral finishes to opaque elements of the façade, such as brick, stone and terracotta, and I can see this as a logical outcome of Building Regulations Part L driving more efficient thermal performance, particularly on residential buildings, and clients looking for low embodied carbon solutions, which I believe concrete panels can offer when combined with optimised structural design for the right architecture. There is not enough space here to delve into too much greater detail, but always happy to have a chin wag about this and other developments, including how we are borrowing ideas from the car industry to make the concrete do even more for us with respect to the window interface…
Q: What advice would you give to someone starting their career in the field of façade engineering?
A: Façade engineering seems to have grown exponentially since I started. You can even get a degree in it now. I would say whatever your academic standing, get to site and visit factories whenever you can. Go to prototype tests, whether they be weather, acoustic, impact etc. Get your boots dirty and your laptop full of useful references from past projects as you grow in your career. If you are a consultant, get some time with a specialist subcontractor and vice versa. Make friends, swap notes. It’s a small world. You are better off building long term relationships with the supply chain and design team members whilst working towards the common aim of an excellent building, then getting dragged into politics and showboating. Be useful. Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know or got it wrong. Stay curious – there’s always more to learn.
Q: Where is the most exotic location that your work has taken you?
A: I somehow managed to wangle a trip to a façade conference in Singapore early in my career in consulting and my mind was blown. Surrounded by towers pushing the boundaries of what is possible was certainly eye-opening. We also had a tour of their national stadium whilst under construction, which had a massive retractable roof and some incredible steelwork, from the weld detailing to the temporary works. Nowadays a trip to Leighton Buzzard to sit a leaky shed blasting noise or water at a wall is about as glamorous as it gets! But it is after all why I became an engineer – make and test things, to play Lego and “Blue Peter”, to build something that’s useful and works. Sometimes that’s most fun in your backyard.