ORGANISATION
Arup
ESTABLISHED
1946
LOCATION
Arup has six offices in Australia
and offices in twenty six other countries
SPECIALISING IN
Building and infrastructure design, business planning and management consulting.
EMPLOYEES
10 000 globally
1000 in Australia
GROSS TURNOVER
GBP850m
MARKETS
Globally integrated company
HIGHLIGHTS
Engineered the Water Cube and Birds Nest for the Beijing Olympics and the Sydney Opera House. Arup is a global multiple award winning company.
www.arup.com
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‘I HAVE NEVER LOOKED BACK’
Tristram Carfrae, Arup Fellow, Arup
THE BEST STRATEGY
Tristram Carfrae’s work at Arup, the worldwide building engineering consultancy, has included leading the team responsible for engineering Beijing’s ‘Water Cube’. He believes that looking to the future is much more important than most people appreciate.
‘Human nature tends to be the reverse’ Tristram says, ‘it tends to be “what have we done before”. I think the best strategy is a combination of what is the best solution to date and how can we now do it better.’ Tristram recognises that being innovative in the world of engineering is no easy thing because as he puts it, ‘the natural tendency of engineers is to be risk averse and there’s an assumption that doing something innovative increases the risk.’
A BETTER WAY
For Tristram the need to be innovative is pressing. By 2050 he says, ‘we’re going to have six billion people living in urban environments and almost all that increase will come in the developing world where that environment has to be built between now and 2050. The resource and energy consumption of doing so will kill the planet if we don’t do it in an innovative, better, more efficient, more economical fashion.’
‘I suggested to my mother, who was an architect, that I also wanted to be an architect, whereupon she suggested I be an engineer. I went to university and studied engineering and then joined the firm that she suggested, Arup. I have never looked back, I love it.’
Tristram Carfrae, Arup Fellow, Arup
INNOVATION IS FUN!
Tristram recalls a Spanish artist telling him that to be creative, or innovative, required three things: wanting to be; a degree of independence; and a high degree of self confidence because as Tristram puts it, ‘you need to believe that your proposal to do something new or differently is better than what everybody else in the world has ever done before.’
Ultimately, Tristram’s message for his colleagues is a simple one, he says that ‘innovation is fun!’
MORE INFORMATION
For more information about Industry Innovation Councils:
WEB www.innovation.gov.au/industryinnovationcouncils
EMAIL innovationcouncils@innovation.gov.au
PHONE +61 2 6213 7221
Manager
Industry Innovation Councils Team
Department of Innovation,
Industry, Science and Research
GPO Box 9839
Canberra ACT 2601