Celine Cannam

I always liked knowing how things worked and was particularly curious about things that moved so I went into mechanical engineering. Then I discovered building services, and their power to affect someone’s experience of the built environment. In the past 11+ years I have worked in London and Sydney on projects including arts, culture, commercial and residential.

The challenge for building services is, how do we make buildings work for people today, and into the future? The buildings we design or refurbish must consider efficiency, future use, cost and flexibility. Reinvigorating our existing buildings, so we retain their history and instead of designing with a blank slate, we think outside the box to give them new life.

Every building we design is a collaboration between architects, engineers and consultants. A fine balance between the aesthetics, structure, lighting, acoustics, building performance and controls to achieve the desired product. Working collaboratively is how we find the compromise that will work, particularly on projects where there is no easy solution. That’s what engineers do - we literally solve 3D puzzles together.