John Roberts (engineer)
John Roberts (* 1948 in Bristol ) is a British civil engineer.
Life
Roberts studied civil engineering at the University of Sheffield , where he did his PhD on dynamic overloading of steel structures. He worked as an engineer in building supervision at McAlpine and from 1974 as a design engineer at Bertram Done. He then worked for Allott & Lomax in Manchester, which at the time was doing a lot of nuclear power plants. Roberts became a director at Allott & Lomax, which was acquired by Babtie in 2000. In 2004, the American plant engineering company Jacobs Engineering Group took over Babtie and Roberts became Executive Director of Operations at the Jacobs UK subsidiary.
Roberts is best known as the engineer behind the 173-meter-high British Airways i360 observation tower in Brighton, which opened in 2016 . In 1995 he received an award for the Big One roller coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach . Allott & Lomax had no experience with roller coasters or amusement parks at the time, but built many more (right from the start at the same time as Blackpool in Alton Towers) such as a record-breaking wooden roller coaster in TusenFryd , Norway. Roberts was also involved in the creation of the award-winning London Eye (2001). Marks Barfield ( David Marks and Julia Barfield ) were the architects for both the i360 and the London Eye . John Roberts offered himself to architect David Marks as an amusement park specialist after hearing about the London Eye project. Initially, Arup was engaged as an engineering company, but that was eliminated when the Mitsubishi construction company withdrew. Marks and Barfield's plans to market the London Eye in other cities failed because of the high price, and so the idea of a cheaper alternative in the form of the i360 observation tower was born. Roberts also holds shares in the operating company of the i360 and similar projects in other locations are planned.
In 2005 Roberts received the gold medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers , of which he was president in 1999/2000.
Roberts was involved in the Royal Academy of Engineering's interim report on the need for new regulations after the fire at Grenfell Tower in London, which was prepared under the direction of Judith Hackett.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roberts, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British civil engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1948 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bristol |