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Founded as an independent creative practice of architects, designers, artists and theoreticians — producing work across architecture, art, and research globally. Current projects include Cinnamon Life ($850M) in Colombo and Landmark in Myanmar.

Founded the Non-Linear Systems Organization (NSO) at Penn Design — a material and structural research unit. Concurrent visiting positions at Yale School of Architecture (Saarinen Professor), Harvard GSD (Kenzo Tange Professor), and LSE.

Officer of the Order of the British Empire, awarded for services to structural engineering and architecture. Among the first engineers recognised in this manner for contributions to design culture.

Appointed Deputy Chairman of Arup Group and Chairman of Arup’s European Building Division. Led the firm’s creative and intellectual direction for nearly a decade.

Founded the AGU — a multi-disciplinary research group of architects, artists, engineers, and scientists pursuing the genesis of form through numbers, music, and mathematics. Worked with Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Álvaro Siza, Shigeru Ban on landmark projects worldwide.

Began the long-running collaboration with OMA that yielded the Maison à Bordeaux (1998), Seattle Central Library (2004), Casa da Música Porto (2005), CCTV Headquarters Beijing (2012), and the Serpentine Pavilion (2006) among others.

Born in Sri Lanka in 1943, Balmond studied at the University of Southampton (BSc) and Imperial College London (MSc Civil Engineering). He originally wanted to be a musician. Joined Arup in 1968, becoming aware of the full possibilities of structures a decade later while working on the Staatsgalerie with James Stirling.