Tributes paid to Geoffrey Cundall

Geoffrey P. Cundall (1924-2015)

Geoffrey P. Cundall, leading engineer and one of the founders of Cundall, the multidisciplinary engineering consultancy, passed away on 18 February, at the age of 90. He is survived by Rachel, his wife of 64 years and daughters, Ruth, Heather, Joanna and 10 grandchildren.

Geoffrey had a distinguished career in building services and was a partner of R W Gregory and Partners before leaving to lecture in the Building Services Department of Sheffield University in 1971. He was very active in the field of lighting and delivered papers to the IES, of which he served a term as National President in 1972 prior to its incorporation into CIBSE. He also served on the editorial committee of the Building Services Journal and served a term as North East Chairman.

Geoffrey was a Quaker, one of his main motivations to establish a new practice was for it to reflect his own values of honesty, integrity, commitment, supportiveness and responsibility. These are values which are still at the heart of Cundall.

Geoffrey along with Michael Burch, Rick Carr, David Gandy and Bernard Johnston founded Cundall in 1976. The founding partners, a combination of building services and structural engineers, shared a common vision that the practice would become a leading multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy built on sound, ethical principles. As a partner, he contributed to lay the foundations that enabled this local firm to grow organically to become national and eventually international. Cundall now operates out of 20 offices in 11 countries, a testament to the initial vision and the principles embodied in it.

Ahead of his time in many ways he was an early advocate for sustainability. During the first oil crisis in the 1970’s, he was one of the founding members of the North East Energy Conservation Group lead by Sir Horace Heyman. This group substantially raised awareness of the need for energy efficiency and conservation. Geoffrey worked on the study for the second Low Energy Hospital in the UK in 1984 and came out with an energy strategy still utilised today. This included making the building form and fabric work as hard as practical, modifying the external environment before adding efficient active systems. His design maximised daylight with perimeter and roof lights, the building U values were far in excess of building regulations. Ventilation systems incorporated heat recovery. It also incorporated onsite low or zero carbon technologies in the form of a wind turbine and waste was used to generate thermal energy, all well ahead of its time.  The completed hospital won Green Building of the Year in 1994, after Geoffrey retired.

Geoffrey retired in 1989 but stayed close to the Cundall business whilst continuing to pursue his many interests and activities. When he visited the Cundall Melbourne office in 2005 he expressed his pride that the business he had founded had grown globally and was so focused on sustainable design.

John McArdle, Former Cundall Structural Partner

I first met Geoffrey when I joined his newly formed multi-disciplinary practice in 1976 as a Graduate Engineer. I soon came to realise that he was a most experienced, professional, courteous and precise consultant, greatly respected by his peers for his impartial advice. He was also a man of great faith and integrity, which for him were guiding principles in the way he conducted himself in both his public and private life.

Geoffrey took physical exercise seriously, long before the creation of gyms and fitness centres. Likewise he was concerned about sustainability before it became more fashionable and he was involved in work on low energy buildings.

Geoffrey was prepared to take risks, and setting up a small new practice in 1976, after a long successful career elsewhere, was one of them - without that the Cundall we know today would simply not exist.

He will be missed by many but our thoughts at this time must go to his wife Rachel and family.

Keith Anderson, Cundall Partner

I met Geoffrey when I joined Cundall as a graduate in 1984. My first impression was how professionally he conducted himself in everything he did. 

He was very keen on keeping fit and followed an army style training regime. While some of us would go over to Gosforth pool and swim 50 lengths at lunch time Geoffrey would swim set numbers of lengths against the timing clock which he used to get the attendants to turn on for him, he was doing interval training 30 years ago.