Chris Atkins

Chris Atkins is the founder and Managing Director of Symmetrys, the structural and civil engineering practice he established in 2006. A chartered structural engineer (CEng MIStructE), he has worked in the profession since 1986, with earlier experience across South East Asia, the Middle East and the UK at firms including Ove Arup, Hyder, Bechtel and Dewhurst Macfarlane.

At Symmetrys he has built a practice known for considerate, responsible design and a strong sustainability agenda, from low carbon structural design to the FerrousWheel steel reuse tool developed with London South Bank University. He values long term relationships across the built environment and a workplace where the team has a genuine voice, reflected in the practice's move to employee ownership.

In this Architecture Social conversation, Chris talks about why sustainability in engineering has to be proactive rather than reactive, how reused steel and retained structure can cut embodied carbon, and what it takes to build a practice culture worth staying for.

Watch or listen to the full conversation in the Architecture Social CPD: Cutting Embodied Carbon in Structural Engineering with Symmetrys.