Peter Buckthorp
CEng, MIStructE, MICE

Born 1942. Peter commenced his career in 1958 as a trainee engineer with W V Zinn & Associates, working on a wide variety of building structures including the London Hilton Hotel and hospitals for the North West Metropolitan Hospital Board. He joined Munce and Kennedy in 1963 as senior Design Engineer for the structural and infrastructure design of the Sports Cities in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya.

On completion of this major project, in 1966 Peter joined Ove Arup and Partners, where he began his relationship with Ted Happold and some of his future Buro Happold partners. At Arup’s, Peter worked as Design Engineer on Hyde Park Cavalry Barracks before departing for West Africa where he spent several years in charge of structural and civil engineering projects. On returning to London, Peter became the Project Engineer responsible for the structural design of many housing, civic and commercial developments in the London Borough of Lambeth.

In 1973 he became Associate of Project Management, responsible for the management and financial control of the division. In 1976 Peter left to become a founder of Buro Happold, where in addition to his project work he had special responsibility for the administrative, financial and legal aspects of the practice.