Roshantha Rupesinghe: Senior security engineer

21/11/2011 Written by: Dominic Danson No comments

Roshantha is a senior engineer in Buro Happold’s Security team.

So, what does security cover then?

Quite a lot! There’s a lot of misconception about it all really. It’s not just CCTV and keeping an eye on people. The beauty of what we do is to design out fundamental risks. I was on a conference call the other week about identifying the behaviour of crime. CCTV won’t solve pick pocketing, for example, but we can change the factors that influence risk and reduce the activity. With something much bigger like terrorism there’s no way you can completely design it out, but we work from the outside in to make activities more obvious and easier to prevent.

Sounds like there’s a lot of perception

Yes. Everything we do is with user experience in mind. No one wants to walk into the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and feel like they’re being watched. So for that project we came up with a really elegant solution to allow cameras to be placed anywhere inside a ‘technical cove’ in every space. It’s there to hide technology so people have a better experience inside the building. That’s what I try to do – make people’s experiences better and safer.

Very Happoldesque

Oh yes, Happoldness is everywhere in our work. We think things through a lot more than you might expect. We had to find a way to stop trespassers climbing over a wall recently. So we decided to taper it on the opposite side. You wouldn’t know to look at it, and if you tried to get up there you’d reach the top and think ‘oh crap’. So it’s a neat solution that does the job well without interfering with aesthetics.

That’s a nice, simple solution. Do you find yourself going back to first principles on each challenge you face?

The way we do things means that we try to solve the problem or answer the challenge, rather than go at it with a presupposed solution. I’m doing some work in Doha at the moment around how to control access to apartments. We talked through the problems and came up with an idea to issue temporary PINs to visitors. They allow access only to a certain area in the building so visitors can’t go wandering. You get into the lift, type in your PIN on a keypad and it will take you to the right floor. It’s pretty simple, but elegant. We try to enhance a system beyond what people expect, rather than just put cameras everywhere!

I bet it helps to be involved right from the start

Absolutely. We work on a lot of mixed use spaces and it’s a new style of job – not just one building but details across a much larger plan. We look at everything holistically. There’s no point in putting onerous levels of security in a hotel, for example. It takes a lot of time to design a bad solution.

Let’s talk more about you. Why did you choose security?

It’s an interesting story. I trained as an engineer and on my first day here the reception of our Bath office was being ripped apart for refurbishment. I was looking at pictures of buildings on the walls and thought ‘wow’. During my interview I had walked around the building and saw one of my now colleagues messing around with a hand geometry reader. Purely proof of concept stuff. We can mess around with cutting edge technology in this business. We get paid to convince people of the practical applications of obscure tech. I liked that.

So why Buro Happold?

I first found out about the practice at a uni’ careers fair. To be honest, I wanted the free pens. So to get my free stuff I asked what they did. It was Andrew Kelly who was there and I kept gesturing to the freebies, but he’s like 6’ 10” and hard to run away from! But everything he said was really interesting and so cool. He offered me an interview, so I came. And of course I loved the place.

What would you have done if you hadn’t gone into engineering?

I’d have been a doctor.

Why?

My family is in medicine. The condition on me applying to engineering degrees was that I applied for medicine as well. I did the one that came back with an offer first. I don’t think I’d have had as much fun if I’d been a doctor.

I was about to ask about that...

It’s a fantastic thing, engineering. It allows you to do anything. You can really focus on what you’re passionate about and actually create something.

What do you do in your down time? Do you build things out of Lego or Meccanno?

Haha I never got exposed to expensive toys – I used to rip them apart to find out how they worked. Mostly I read and do preparation stuff.

Other than that, what do you do?

I’m a bit of a tech geek. I just got a new iPhone in the post. I love the new voice command. There’s so much power! I just can’t help thinking ‘if this is the capability of a phone now, what does it mean for everything else in the next year?!’ But I love the concept of talking to a device.

OK then, what’s the best answer your iPhone has given you to a question?

I asked it who Steve Jobs was. It gave me his name, date of birth and a link to an article about him. And I asked it a ‘knock knock’ joke.

How did that go?

Me: Knock knock.
iPhone: Who’s there?
Me: Roshantha.
iPhone: Roshantha I don’t do knock knock jokes.

That was brilliant.