Cecil Balmond

Cecil Balmond is a Sri Lankan - British designer, artist, architect, and writer. He went to Trinity College, Kandy and later studied engineering at the University of Colombo. After living briefly in Nigeria he moved to Britain and continued his studies at the University of Southampton and at Imperial College, London. In 1968 Balmond joined Ove Arup & Partners, leading him to become deputy chairman. In 2000 he founded design and research group, the AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit).

He currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret Chair at Penn Design as Professor of Architecture where he is also the founding director of the Non Linear Systems Organization, a material and structural research unit. He has also been Kenzo Tange Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Architecture, Saarinen professor at Yale University School of Architecture and visiting fellow at London School of Economics.

In 2010 Balmond set up his own architectural practice, Balmond Studio, with offices in London and Colombo. The research led practice is involved with art, architecture, design and consulting. One current project is the Gretna Landmark, Star of Caledonia for which Cecil is the artist. It is an illuminated sculpture that marks the Scottish and English Boarder crossing, and will be completed in 2014.