Jan Wurm

Having trained as an architect and with a PhD on Structural Glass, Jan began his career at Arup as a fa?ade designer and materials specialist working out of our London office. His work on the use of glass in building envelopes has made him an internationally recognised expert in his field. Jan is now part of Arup’s Research & Innovation team – creating opportunities to collaboratively work on the future challenges of our built environment.

2005 Joined Arup

2 Offices worked in across Europe

I trained as an architect and was working at an architectural firm before joining Arup. I’ve always been interested in the technical aspects of design, and Arup’s approach of ‘total design’ as well as commitment to collaboration, really attracted me. I started working within the materials team as I have specialist knowledge in the use of glass in construction.

“
If you align with the values of Arup there is lots of freedom to do what you want to do and to develop yourself and to have that freedom to do what you’re passionate about. ”

After 3 years working on a range of projects, I moved to Berlin to set up materials consulting. When the demand for product developments increased, the department transformed into what we call now the Foresight, Research & Innovation team. I am now Leader for Research & Innovation in Europe and champion Ventures – to support the development of innovative Products and Services.

I really enjoy the projects I get to work on here, but my role also means I get to push the boundaries of what is possible and develop new solutions – and that is exciting! This could be on individual projects or on a bigger scale. I’m currently doing a lot of work in terms of circular economy (the idea of designing out waste) and its exciting knowing that this will help influence entire industries.

I think my favourite project at Arup has been creating a ‘living fa?ade'. This started out as a design competition, I led a team who designed a fa?ade that contained living micro algae with the aim of producing biomass and heat. It started out as a wild idea – but we won the competition. We subsequently founded an industry consortium that included the German government to develop this as an actual product. In just three years, we took this from an idea through to a fully realised product. I think this was a fantastic achievement, particularly as we were working across multiple skills including facades, sustainability, modelling, structural engineering and others. Following extensive monitoring and some adaptations as a result of our learning, we’ve improved the product so it can be integrated into propriety fa?ade systems.