Consultants move to strengthen building envelope teams

Turner & Townsend Alinea has brought in a facades specialist from contractor Permasteelisa to beef up its building envelope team,

Sam Burgess spent under a year at the Italian firm as a senior commercial manager after seven years as commercial manager at Envelope and the previous four years at Lindner Group.

Iain Parker, head of cost management at T&T Alinea, said: “We believe Burgess’s commercial understanding of system design, materials and the supply chain will benefit our clients enormously, and we can’t wait to mobilise him on our schemes.”

Darren Kent headshot

Darren Kent joins DeSimone after 12 years at Arup

Meanwhile, DeSimone Consulting has announced Arup veteran Darren Kent as associate director of façades.

Kent, who has 27 years of experience including 12 years as part of Arup’s façade leadership team, will head up DeSimone’s façade team from its London office.

Kent said: “I look forward to working alongside the leadership and the entire team to enhance the delivery of services to our clients in the UK and Europe.”

DeSimone, which was set up in New York in 1969, has nearly 600 staff working out of 21 offices globally, including London.

In the summer it bought 10-strong engineer DP Squared, which is based in West Yorkshire and which has been going since 2004. In the autumn it bought the 22-strong cost consultant Decipher, which was set up in 2001 and has offices in London, Manchester and Dubai.