We are delighted to announce the appointment of Alistair Lenczner as Director within the Useful Simple Trust group, from 1st December.
Alistair was most recently a partner at Foster + Partners, and earlier in his career worked very closely at Arup with the late, legendary engineer Peter Rice. He joins the Useful Simple Trust as Director for both the Useful Simple Projects and Expedition Engineering divisions. The new appointment will allow the Trust’s creative project work to benefit from Alistair’s considerable, unusual, and successful cross-disciplinary experience as a designer working right across the built environment at the sharp end of international engineering, architecture and infrastructure projects.
Alistair’s 30 year career includes leading roles in projects such as the new Wembley Stadium, the Millau Viaduct in France with Fosters; and the Louvre Museum expansion and the new Padre Pio Church in Italy with Arups. With Fosters he was also instrumental in the development of the Slussen Masterplan in central Stockholm and on the recent proposal for a new Inner Thames Estuary Airport.
In joining the Useful Simple Trust, Alistair renews his creative working relationship with Expedition directors Chris Wise and Sean Walsh, having worked with both for several years at Arup in the 1990’s after Peter Rice’s early death. He will form new relationships with other key Trust directors including Useful Simple Projects’ Dan Epstein, former Olympic Delivery Authority Head of Sustainability; and Ed McCann, RAEng Visiting Professor of Innovation and Chair of the ICE’s Best Practice Panel.
Alistair Lenczner says:
“I am delighted to be joining the Useful Simple Trust and help the company continue its trail-blazing work. I will be working with the practice to develop a wide of projects ranging from innovative engineering structures to forward-thinking urban and infrastructure planning.”
Prof. Chris Wise (Chair, Useful Simple Trust, and Expedition founder) says:
“Alistair is a rare, proven, design talent and we are really happy that he has chosen to join us. I’m expecting him to challenge us a lot. We know him as a man of great insight, which will help the Trust raise its design game in engineering and also its emerging strategic capability in infrastructure and planning. I’m really excited at the creative possibilities of planting Alistair in our fertile cross-disciplinary practice.”
The Useful Simple Trust is the employee benefit trust set up when the founder shareholders of Expedition Engineering gave away the practice in 2008. The Trust now owns and runs an unusual stable of 5 growing design “niche” brands:
- Engineering practice Expedition
- Strategic sustainable development practice Useful Simple Projects
- Communications and graphics practice Thomas Matthews
- Education consultancy ThinkUp
- Architectural practice Useful Studio
