Arup

Type	Private, owned in trust
Founded	1946 by Sir Ove N. Arup
Headquarters	London  United Kingdom 92 Offices in 37 countries
Key people	Philip Dilley, Chairman Mike Shears, Chair of the Trustees
Industry	Design, Engineering and Business consultation
Revenue	GB£572 million (2007)[1]
Employees	ca. 10,000
Website	www.arup.com

Arup is a professional services firm providing engineering, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of the built environment. The firm is present in the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and now has over 10,000 staff based in 92 offices in 37 countries. Projects have been undertaken in more than 160 countries.^[2]

[edit] History

The 'Bird's Nest or Beijing National Stadium, for 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing, China

The firm was founded in 1946, as Ove N. Arup, Consulting Engineers by Sir Ove Nyquist Arup. Sir Ove set out to build a firm where professionals of diverse disciplines could work together to produce projects of greater quality than was achievable by them working in isolation. In 1963, together with the architect Philip Dowson, Arup Associates was formed to offer multi-disciplinary architectural and engineering services. In 1970, the firm reformed as "Ove Arup & Partners" and in the same year, Ove Arup delivered what is known as "The Key Speech", setting out the values and future vision for Arup.

[edit] Ownership

Arup has no shareholders or external investors and is owned wholly by its employees who receive a share of the firm's operating profit each year.^[1]

[edit] Fellows

30 St Mary Axe

Arup Fellow is a life-long honorary title awarded to very few individuals in the firm. It acknowledges the highest design and technical achievements of an Arup person, not only within the firm, but also in the industry as a whole. They are considered role models with world-class expertise who put theory into effective practice.

The current fellows are:

• Cecil Balmond
• Tristram Carfrae
• Pat Dallard
• Naeem Hussain
• Alisdair McGregor
• Mike Glover
• Andy Sedgwick
• Brian Simpson
• Michael Willford.

[edit] Notable projects

Angel of the North

Coventry Cathedral, showing the new building by Arup in the background.

It is best known for its design work for the built environment. Projects to which it has contributed include the Sydney Opera House, which is largely credited with launching Arup into the premier league of engineering consultancies.^[3]

[edit] Notable projects in the Americas

• Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
• De Young Museum, San Francisco
• California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
• Y2E2 Building, Stanford, Palo Alto

[edit] Notable projects in Asia

Beijing National Aquatics Centre at night

• Beijing National Aquatics Centre, Beijing, China (designed by Sydney office)
• Beijing National Stadium, Beijing, China
• CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China
• Dongtan Ecocity, China
• Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower, Guangzhou, China
• HSBC Main Building, Hong Kong
• International Finance Centre, Hong Kong
• Stonecutters Bridge, Hong Kong
• Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan
• Petron Megaplaza, Makati, Philippines
• Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, India

[edit] Notable projects in Australasia

Sydney Opera House

CCTV headquarters in Beijing's CBD district nearing completion (August 2008).

• Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
• Andrew Boy Charlton Pool, Sydney, Australia
• 30 The Bond, Sydney, Australia
• Parramatta Transport Interchange, Sydney, Australia
• Carriageworks, Sydney, Australia
• Goodwill Bridge, Brisbane, Australia
• Suncorp Stadium Lang Park redevelopment, Brisbane, Australia
• Queen St. Mall Central Structure, Brisbane, Australia
• Kurilpa Bridge, Brisbane, Australia
• K2 Sustainable Housing, Melbourne, Australia
• Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia
• Melbourne Museum, Melbourne, Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
• State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
• Australian Synchrotron, Melbourne, Victoria
• National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia
• Singapore Flyer, Singapore
• Fusionopolis, Singapore

[edit] Notable projects in Europe

• 30 St Mary Axe, London
• Angel of the North, Gateshead, UK
• Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal
• Pompidou Centre, Paris
• High Speed 1, UK
• Millennium Bridge, London
• The London Eye, London (original design with Marks Barfield Architects taken to tender stage as a 150m diameter wheel with 36 capsules 135m^[4])
• Nou Mestalla Stadium, Valencia, Spain
• Oresund Bridge, Denmark / Sweden
• Snowdon Summit Building, Wales
• Scottish Parliament Building, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Restoration program of Brunel's SS Great Britain, Bristol, UK
• Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, England
• Donbass Arena, Donetsk, Ukraine

[edit] Awards

Casa da Música

The Casa da Música, designed by Arup and Office for Metropolitan Architecture was nominated for the 2007 Stirling Prize.

Arup's work with The Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, won them Large Consultancy Firm of the Year 2003 at the British Consultants and Construction Bureau - International Expertise Awards, 2003 building on their triple win at the 2002 World Architecture Awards.^[5]

Arup was awarded the Worldaware Award for Innovation for its Vawtex air system in Harare International School.^[6]

Arup Fire has won the Fire Safety Engineering Design award four times since its creation in 2001.^[7] The 2001 inaugural award was won for Arup's contribution to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, the world's largest greenhouse. In 2004, the design for London's City Hall was appointed joint winner. In 2005, the Temple Mills Eurostar Depot won. The 2006 winning entry was for Amethyst House, a nine storey building with an atrium from the ground to the top, in Manchester, UK.^[8] More recently, Dr Barbara Lane, Associate Director with Arup, won the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal^[9] for her outstanding contribution to British engineering on design of structures for fire.

Arup was also awarded Royal Town Planning Institute Consultancy of the year award in 2008.

Mike Glover is the recipient of the 2008 Institution of Structural Engineers' Gold Medal.

[edit] Criticism

The Millennium Bridge, London

Arup has been accused of exaggerating the environmental credentials gained from its involvement in the Dongtan eco-city project in Shanghai.^[10]

Arup was prominent in the design of Dongtan, and its role has allowed it to bid for other prestigious projects in China. However, planning permission for the proposed site has now expired, and there are doubts over the future of the project.^[11]

[edit] Related companies

Arup was one of the first engineering consultancies to adopt a holistic multi-disciplined approach to engineering design. Over the years, a number of its staff have left to form other companies, often with significant parallels with Arup.

In 1976, Edmund Happold (engineer for the Pompidou Centre) and six other engineers from the group left Arup to form Buro Happold in Bath. Mark Whitby in turn left Buro Happold to form Whitby Bird.

In 1999, Chris Wise (engineer for the Millennium Bridge) and Sean Walsh left Arup to form Expedition Engineering in London.

[edit] Engineering & other related disciplines

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Arup official website
• Arup Fire
• The key speech of Sir Ove Arup
• Barbara Lane and advanced structural fire engineering
• RIBA, Architecture & Climate change talk: Peter Head, Arup; Entering an Ecological Age(video)