The Pursuit of Happiness
Keeping clients and architects happy, through the engineering of the Shard and London Bridge station
Senior Technical Director, John Parker, WSP London, UK
John Parker MA CEng FICE FIStructE graduated from Churchill College Cambridge in 1982 with a first class honours degree in engineering. He joined WSP in 1987 and is now a Senior Technical Director in the London structures team. His experience includes:
- Canning Town station – interchange between the Jubilee line and two Docklands Light Railway lines. Managing engineer.
- Hungerford Bridge – two cable-stayed footbridges across the River Thames. Project director.
- Rolls Royce Motors – new factory for the assembly of Rolls Royce cars. Project director.
- London Bridge station redevelopment – complete rebuild to provide additional Thameslink platforms, and a new street-level concourse. Contractor’s responsible engineer.
- The Shard – at 306m, the tallest building in western Europe. The Shard is a mixed use building, with a steel frame to level 40 and a concrete frame to level 72. Project director.
John is particularly interested in enhancing architecture through expressed structural engineering.