Craig Schwitter
BSCE MSCE PE

Born 1967. Craig joined Buro Happold in the Spring of 1992 having previously graduated from John Hopkins University and MIT, where he took a particular interest in specialised structures. He is one of the youngest people in the practice to have been made a Principal at the age of 33 years.

Starting out in the Bath office, he worked on a number of projects including Eastleigh Tennis Centre where he put his special structures knowledge into action. "I left the US looking for something different and found Buro Happold," says Craig who describes himself as a native New Yorker with a mixture of Swiss and Italian heritage. After a two year period in Bath Craig returned to New York where he joined FTL Happold. "At FTL architecture and engineering are combined into a single practice." says Craig, who was tasked with "growing the engineering side of the business".

A return to Bath came in 1997 where more special structure work followed. Craig was involved in the design and construction of the Butlins Skyline Pavilions, which made use of tensile structures and of course the Millennium Dome in Greenwich where he worked on-site. In the fall of 1998 the decision was made to open an office in New York which concentrated solely on engineering. Craig, along with other senior people from FTL, formed the new Buro Happold New York office. From a core of five key people, the team has now grown to 70. The practice offers structures, building services and FEDRA.

One of Craig's biggest interests lies in the interaction between architecture and engineering. He was appointed to the first Bedford Distinguished Chair of Architecture and Engineering, in the architectural and civil engineering departments of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in January 2001. He describes this as "a real honour" and where "my job will be to promote architecture and engineering and to establish engineering as a creative discipline".