Tom Barker

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London Eye Ferris Wheel, 2000

Tom Barker (born 1966) is the professor of Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art, London. He specialises in multidisciplinary collaborative working. He is also a visiting tutor at the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory at Course Masters level.

Barker has worked for 17 years in the fields of technology and commercial design. He was born in Stepney, East London, and took his first degree at Edinburgh University, followed by two Masters at Cambridge and the Royal College of Art / Imperial College London. He states that his philosophy is based on continuous learning and embraces innovation, technology and sustainability for commercial application. Tom notes that he has a focus on fusing methods and skills from different disciplines.

Barker invented Smartslab in 1999 while running his building technology consultancy, b consultants ltd. SmartSlab is a multimedia display panel system for buildings. In addition to numerous SmartSlab patents, Tom has been responsible for over 10 patents on other technologies.

He created and ran a 10-person product design group over a period of 6 years at Ove Arup & Partners, consultant engineers. He set up b consultants, (engineers and building designers) in 1997 in London with the support of DCA Design International of Warwick. In 1999, b was subject to a management buyout led by Tom and he also established a new company called Box Ltd, later renamed SmartSlab Ltd.

Tom was awarded an RCA professorship in 2004 (the youngest appointed), an RCA fellowship in 2006, with a fellowship of the Royal Commission of 1851 also in 2006.

Projects undertaken by Barker include: 12 storey eco tower for the Peabody Trust; modular building systems for Hanssem Korea; composite panels for the oil industry; structures for theatre projects; project engineer for the capsules and boarding system of the London Eye ferris wheel; photovoltaic solar products for BP Solar; new technologies on 5 zones in the Millennium Dome (including structural cardboard, GRP composites, super aluminium alloys, and fabric systems); folding refugee shelters; a Bluetooth wireless headset for Emkay. He has also developed V/SpaceLAB, a virtual reality system for architecture using game engine technology; the Masterplanning Tool, a digital city planning system, and Curvatex, a curved building composite technology.