I lead the Smart Space team at BuroHappold Engineering.

Smart Space is a specialist service that uses sophisticated simulations to analyse the interaction of People with Spaces and Processes, with a view to optimising design and logistics for buildings and urban spaces. This ‘people-centered’ design approach uses our insights into people’s behaviour, activities and journeys to maximise space utilisation, wayfinding, circulation efficiency, retail footfalls, operational effectiveness, resilience, and ultimately visitor experience.

Dedicated to putting people at the heart of buildings and masterplan designs, I have a keen interest in transforming spaces into inspirational, safe and inclusive places. With a multidiscipline thinking, I lead cutting-edge projects in sectors ranging from masterplanning to detailed design of exhibition and cultural events, airports, hospitals, and major transport hubs.

I am passionate about the development of powerful simulation and data visualisation tools to assess and visualise the bottlenecks, risks and opportunities from existing or proposed spaces. Using intuitive, dynamic, immersive and interactive visualisations, our modelling tools respond to the user in real-time, right within the 3D CAD / BIM / GIS / Web platforms. The idea is to hide the complexity of number crunching in the background and put the decision maker in control. Leaving the designers and operators to assess the impacts of a vast array of their decisions, to carry out what-if analyses, ultimately to generate better informed and evidence based designs.

Directly from the tropics, I packed my bags to gloomy London and joined BuroHappold’s Smart Space team after 10 years of working with Architectural Design and Project Management in Brazil. My experience in different building typologies involving high numbers of occupants – including stadia, commercial high-rise buildings, schools and train stations – made me realise how massively important it is to consider people movement and behaviour in design. This is how I was hooked into this brave new world of people flow analysis.

As a people flow consultant, I have the opportunity to work with an incredibly talented team from the most diverse backgrounds and to work with some inspiring projects and designers from all over the world. We are challenged every day to bring creative and innovative ideas to help deliver the best design solutions having people experience and circulation as main drivers.

Outside of work, London allows me to enjoy some of the things I love: going to the movies, concerts and sports events – probably why sometimes I feel I am living inside a crowd simulation even on the weekends – and travelling as much as I can, looking for some sunlight. Any sunlight. Seriously.

BuroHappold is an integrated engineering consultancy, and no discipline better represents that than Smart Space with its diverse mix of backgrounds. I started out as a mechanical engineer, then an aerospace engineer, later completing a PhD in optimisation techniques, composite structures and smart devices, and I am now a people flow analyst and software product manager in Smart Space.

The common link in these different areas is creativity and problem solving – I have a particular interest in using and developing modelling tools to optimise processes and spaces in ways we have not considered before, and am happiest when working with the team and with clients to find novel solutions for their needs. This amounts to a ‘user’ role on all our software projects… a developer who does not necessarily code, and a designer who is a stickler for detail.

Outside of work, I like to travel as much as time and money will allow, and keep myself busy being practical and hands-on as much as possible, building something, fixing something, renovating something. You can take the engineer out of mechanical engineering, but you cannot take… you get the idea.

After completing my bachelor’s in architecture from India, I decided to pack up my life and take it with me to the UK to do an MSc. in Construction Management at Loughborough University. I joined Smart Space as a student placement to complete my dissertation project “People Flow Modelling in Building Design”. I understand the challenges faced by my fellow architects to develop a beautiful concept, gain good aesthetics for their building but the question always remained – how do we provide the best experience for the users? That is where I wanted to make a difference in the design industry and Smart Space provides the platform to add significant value for clients through people flow study for buildings and masterplans. The great contributions Smart Space make to the construction industry and the ongoing challenges and lessons learnt from the team have kept me here since 2010.

At the time of joining, the team was much smaller but we had plenty of vision and ambitions. I can say that we have achieved a lot of them, and there is continuing efforts to improve ourselves to be efficient and provide real-time design solving tools for our clients. Drawing on my architectural knowledge and problem solving skills, I have taken a technical lead role in delivering projects in various sectors: education, stadia, cultural venues, transport hubs and airports. My vision is to coordinate a technical database for people movement and to make people flow an integral and seamless part of all architectural design (buildings and masterplans).

I consider myself a fairly active person… While not gardening, at the gym or cooking, you’ll find me singing and playing with my little one. My colleagues say it is very easy to make me happy!

One of my favourite statements is: Enjoy and work through each second of your present life and you will make a beautiful future. Keep smiling!

I am an Industrial Engineer with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I have developed my professional career in multiple disciplines, though I can say that logistics was my field before arriving to BuroHappold Smart Space. I was involved in airport projects, automotive industry, food industry, sports, and many more projects but always with a common denominator: design of processes, layouts and helping to make a vision become a reality.

After moving to London and joining Smart Space, I am still looking at how to improve processes that involve people, including airports, rail stations, stadiums, etc., and furthermore I want to be part of the development of the cities and buildings of the future. We have a vision of what the future will bring to us, cities and buildings better integrated, greener and less disruptive transport modes, and all designed to provide the best service and comfort to people. I want to make my little contribution to this vision.

When I am out of the office, you will likely find me moving my legs, most likely cycling and I do not care very much if it is on hidden roads or covered in mud on any trail. I also enjoy running, snowboarding…anything that makes me move! But, because not everything in this life is suffering, I am also proud to say that from time to time I cannot live without a decent plate of Spanish Jamon and a glass of Ribera del Duero wine.

I have a strong interest in people, the way we interact with each other and the way we behave in different countries and environments. I’ve lived in France, then Portugal, Brazil and finally London. It is a perfect city if you want to travel and it is the perfect location to discover what a major multi-cultural society is.

As part of Smart Space in BuroHappold, I am glad to work on a multitude of projects: from Asia to America, from museum to stadium with always one main focus, how to improve our experience, our safety and our comfort. I have learnt that success usually comes from better and innovative design or from a different approach to operational management.

Most of all, I’m glad to say that I managed along the way to find a unique position within a team of such strong personalities: from ants PhD, mathematician, aerospace engineer, software developers or young parametric structural modellers. So many different point of views, cultures and backgrounds! Yes, I think I found one of the best location to learn about people.

I am a research engineer investigating hospital efficiency through the optimisation of the designs and processes. Most of my work is centred around the use of computational solutions to provide hospital designers and Smart Space the capacity to make our health spaces more efficient, and contain a better user experience.

I have been working with the team since 2016, starting as an intern before deciding to extend my contract for a second year to work more in depth with parametric design and environmental analysis. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture & Engineering from Chalmers University in Sweden and I’m looking to gather as much knowledge as possible before proceeding with my master’s degree.

Previously, I’ve interned as a bridge engineer and freelanced in graphic design, experiences I now bring in to my day-to-day work here. I’m a real nerd when it comes to Grasshopper and love to spend time scripting, solving complex problems and improving our ways of work.

And hey, don’t let my innocent looks fool you; apart from Smart, I also work as a top flight ice hockey referee. This offers great insight to sports venues and stadiums, one of Smart’s areas of expertise. In general, I love sports, and spend a lot of my time trying out different ones (more or less extreme) to give me those rushes of adrenaline that I love. Surfing, snowboarding, chess boxing – you’ll find me there!

I am an Architecture & Engineering student from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. With that mixed educational background, I hope to see myself becoming the mediatory project leader that makes the architects understand the importance of proper space for ventilation ducts and the engineers appreciate the beauty of minimalistic eaves. As an Industrial Placement Student within Smart Space I spend my days analysing data and designing web-based dashboards, getting lots of useful experience in my problem-solving skills (yes, Google is my friend), as well as learning about the importance of always telling a story, which I think is the best way of convincing someone you’re absolutely right.

In my spare time, I try to explore the wonderful city of London as much as possible. Although I try to indulge in new things, such as chess boxing and techno music, you’ll probably find me in one of the following places – outside a brutalist building admiring the different concrete textures, at the Odeon enjoying the latest superhero movie, at the second hand market buying things I don’t need (but hey – it was just two pounds!?), or at the local and a bit dodgy but priceworthy café enjoying a full English Breakfast with extra bacon.

I am an Architecture and Engineering student from Gothenburg, Sweden, spending a year in beautiful Bath doing an Industrial Placement in the Smart Space team. My role in the team depends on the tasks thrown at me in any given week, which usually means modelling support or scripting but changes all the time.

When not at work, I enjoy doing anything outdoors-y (climbing is a big favourite), reading a good book or just having a coffee in the sun. These interests may have me sounding quite calm and composed, but in reality I’m very impulsive and have new “great ideas” that I just “have to do” all the time.

My future ambition is to become a person of great knowledge who can earn her salary just from going to meetings, making decisions and speaking at conferences. What this great knowledge will be of is of lesser importance, I just want to be around people, where the action is, and make an impact. Working at BuroHappold is to me the perfect start to this knowledge-gathering adventure that lies ahead!