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Practice

StructureMode was founded in 2007 by structural engineer Geoff Morrow to collaborate with architects, developers, artists and designers on thoughtful and creative projects. Our approach is to pursue safe, sustainable and efficient design for carefully thought-out, and often innovative, structures. At the same time we undertake ground-breaking engineering and materials research.

Our work includes new-build structures and, often complex, refurbishments for private residential, retail, arts & education, commercial, entertainment and humanitarian projects. We made our name with cool stuff such as temporary structures, sculpture, bespoke staircases and furniture (and we still love doing this). We are world leaders in fabric formwork and lightweight tensile and tensegrity structures. Our clients also keep us busy with new basements for existing buildings and sensitive interventions on historic and listed buildings.

We use Revit for BIM projects, or otherwise AutoCAD, Rhino and Sketchup. Analysis and optimisation is executed using Oasys GSA and Grasshopper, and connections are designed using IDEA StatiCa. These modelling and design tools help us develop more efficient, integrated and elegant structures.

People

Geoff Morrow

CEng, MIStructE, MEng
Founder and Director

Qualifications
MEng Civil Engineering (1994)
Chartered Engineer (1998)

Geoff Morrow started StructureMode in 2007, driven by his passion for beautiful design through an innovative and collaborative approach to structural engineering and materials. He has over 20 years experience designing and delivering a broad range of bespoke refurbishment and new build projects across many sectors, regions and scales.

Geoff has an excellent track record of sensitive refurbishment, new-build housing, retail developments, office buildings, bespoke element design, sculpture design and temporary structures. His articulate communication and clear understanding of the architectural design and aesthetic intent, combined with his knowledge of how to best realise it structurally, makes him a valuable and creative force on any design team.

As well as working on many projects in and around London, he has considerable experience designing international projects in developing countries, using local materials to make robust, comfortable and cost efficient buildings. He is an industrial partner on the EPSRC funded research project entitled ‘Health Housing For The Displaced’, led by Bath University.

Geoff leads and mentors his team at all levels, encouraging collaborative working and achieving accelerated career development. This has led to many engineers early attainment of chartered status and some have been recognised by professional awards, including the IStructE who commended one of our engineers for a Young Structural Engineering Professional Award.

He has led in-house research projects to investigate, test and analyse fabric-formed concrete, tensegrity systems and compression-only structures. The knowledge and understanding gained through this work has been applied to several live projects.

Geoff is also a sculptor working mainly with steel and stoneware. Many of his pieces integrate and challenge his structural engineering. His sculptures have been shortlisted for the 2014 V&A ‘Inspired by…’ competition, and exhibited at the ‘Shoreham Sculpture Trail’ hosted by the London Group, June 2017.

He often lectures and tutors students at many architectural and engineering schools, including Bath, Oxford Brookes, Westminster, Sheffield and the Bartlett.


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Teaching

We love to be involved in education to help encourage and inspire up-coming generations of Engineers and Architects. It often challenges us to think outside the box and allows us to help reset the relationship between engineering and architecture.

We believe good architecture and design can be made better through structural engineering. A philosophy we apply in all our practise.