Tristan Couch
BEng MEng CEng FCIBSE
Founding Director
Tristan Couch has a BEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering from the University of Melbourne and an MEng in Civil Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. After working for three years with a structural engineering practice in Australia, he joined Max Fordham LLP in 1997, becoming a Partner in 2001. He and fellow Partner, Mark Skelly, left Max Fordham in 2007 to set up Skelly & Couch and over the past 15 years they have grown the firm to become a thriving business employing 30 people working on a wide range of high-profile, award-winning projects.
At Max Fordham, Tristan was Partner in Charge at the Young Vic Theatre, the National Theatre Studio (including a close control archive to house the National Theatre’s media archive); and the London Library, which involved the amalgamation of seven listed buildings into one, including a close control rare book stack and two passive ventilation book stacks.
Tristan’s environmental engineering work for Skelly & Couch includes many listed projects, including the 2017 RIBA Stirling Prize finalist Command of the Oceans which features a new visitors’ centre, multi-media exhibition space and environmental improvement works at Grade I-listed The Historic Dockyard Chatham. He also took the lead on a major refurbishment and repair of the Grade II*-listed Battersea Arts Centre which was badly damaged by fire in 2015. Tristan has been working on several projects with Historic Royal Palaces at the Grade I-listed Kensington Palace Orangery, including a new building that features a close environmental control system for the Royal Dress collection, as well as landscaping to the Parterre Gardens.
Additional extensive experience includes Grade II*-listed Hoxton Hall; the new Caryl Churchill Theatre beside Grade II-listed Sutherland House at Royal Holloway London; the 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize contender, Chadwick Hall, which is new student housing for Roehampton University next to Grade II*-listed Downshire House, and also shortlisted for an AJ Architecture Award; several projects at the King’s School Canterbury (the world’s oldest extant school); and the Grade I-listed concert hall at St John’s Smith Square, Westminster.
Among other developments, Tristan is currently working on an extension refurbishment for Grade I-listed Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London’s West End. He led environmental and services work at the iconic new Bridge Theatre next to City Hall and Tower Bridge in London, as well as the 400-seat Peter Hall Performing Arts Centre at The Perse School Cambridge.
Tristan was in charge of environmental engineering works at Gascoigne Estate East in Barking, east London, which is delivering Scandinavian-style housing of five blocks of 526 flats each; and a recent housing scheme for Igloo Housing called Malmo Quay West.
