Chris Wise

FACT FILE

  • Selected Projects
    2012 Olympic Velodrome
  • Infinity Bridge, Stockton-on-Tees
  • Barcelona Bullring
  • Greek National Library and Opera House, Athens
  • American Air Museum, Duxford

Footage kindly supplied by Arup.

Chris Wise is widely known for hands-on engineering projects, both as design lead, and also for his close working collaboration with some of the world’s leading architects.

Beginning his career with Ove Arup and Partners in 1979, Chris became Arup’s youngest Director in 1992, and later became one of five Board Directors responsible for Building Engineering’s 500 engineers and support staff. His key projects at Arup include:

  • Millennium Bridge, London
  • Barcelona Communications Tower
  • American Air Museum, Duxford.

In 1999 Chris left Arup to co-found the experimental practice Expedition Engineering. Expedition’s projects have received awards for both structural engineering and overall sustainability and key projects include:

  • 2012 Olympic Velodrome
  • Infinity Bridge, Stockton-on-Tees
  • Barcelona Bullring
  • Greek National Library and Opera House, Athens.

Chris is also active in design education and was a co-founder of the Constructionarium. He lectures, writes and broadcasts widely, to architectural and engineering students on creative design in projects and the role of the engineer in design life. He is a regular columnist with Building magazine and co-presented the BBC’s reconstruction of several pieces of ancient technology including a 23-tonne Roman oak catapult built according to the instructions of Vitruvius; a human-powered airship designed in 1783; an oak submarine rowed under the Thames in 1624; and the retractable roof of the Colosseum.

In 1998 Chris was awarded the distinction of Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, only the second structural engineer to be honoured in this way. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and was awarded their highest individual honour, the Silver Medal, in 2007. In 2008 he became a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers by presidential invitation and was most recently awarded the prestigious IABSE Milne Medal.