The people behind LEAN structures

I set up LEAN structures in 2020, after twelve years working as a structural engineer in London and Myanmar — most recently leading a 25-year masterplan for a 14-hectare hospital complex in Yangon, and its sister project in Sittwe: seismic assessments, strengthening and phased redevelopment across more than 60 buildings, some dating back to 1890.

Before that, I worked on Passivhaus and heritage projects in London — including lifting and underpinning 98 Eaton Square, a six-storey Victorian terrace, for Eric Parry Architects, and 32a Lansdowne Drive, a partially submerged, Passivhaus-certified house that won the UK Passivhaus Awards’ Urban category in 2016. I became a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2020 — the same year I started LEAN structures.

I still do the hand calculations myself — not because the software can’t, but because it keeps me honest about what a structure is actually doing, and it’s a useful check on the computational work. I use finite element and CFD modelling where a project genuinely needs it, and I still work with my hands: I’ve fitted out timber staircases and micro-lodges on site, and carpentry still sits alongside the engineering.

Each year I run a seismic design workshop for structural engineering students at Oxford Brookes University, where they build and test scale model towers.

Outside work: restoring and modifying classic vehicles, throwing pottery, and 3D printing — most of it in service of the same habit, understanding how something is actually made before deciding how to improve it.