2025 Year in Review

15 January 2026

Last year, 2025, offered a moment to reflect on two decades of Eckersley O’Callaghan. Twenty years of commitment to thoughtful design, deep technical insight and a shared belief in the power of great engineering to shape a better, more resilient world. With many projects around the globe reaching significant milestones, we look back at 2025 and the achievements of our 11 global offices.

Project Milestones

With the long-awaited addition to the Sydney Harbour Bridge Cycleway officially open, the new ramp creates a continuous north-south route across one of the world’s most recognisable bridges, and means cyclists no longer have to carry their bikes up 250 steps. As part of delivering the project’s engineering and industrial design, we worked in close collaboration with architecture, landscape and heritage, to create the innovative asymmetrical design that gives the freedom to conform to the competing constraints while creating the unique soffit geometry of the steel deck.

Over in Paris, following three years of renovation work, Renault opened its new flagship store on the Champs-Élysées. Dedicated to automotive pop-culture, le défilé renault ® the carwalk is a cultural hub with a showroom, boutique, and restaurant. As the project’s structural engineers, we completely emptied the existing building to create space for a 180m long internal car circuit, known as the LOOP.

Our work with the French automotive industry continues with 32–34 Rue Marbeuf which sits at the heart of the Champs Élysées district. Designed for Citroën’s showcase, the 1920s building was carefully refurbished with PCA Stream Architects. The project refurbished two buildings, introduced a six story timber extension with new offices, commercial space and terraces, and reimagined the Marbeuf facade with a monumental staircase and a rooftop terrace lit by an elliptical skylight.

We are also in Hérault Arnod Architect’s competition winning team for the new sports and entertainment venue in Dunkirk. Located close to the SNCF station, the arena will host a 5,500-seat capacity in a sports configuration with a translucent and changing texture, evoking a light, aquatic atmosphere, sometimes revealing an aurora borealis.

Our commitment to sustainability continued to guide our global work, challenging our clients and collaborators to make better decisions, achieving lower-carbon buildings while championing reuse and refurbishment. In London, we brought our facade expertise to an extension of The Old Vic, creating a six-storey backstage annexe with Haworth Tompkins Architects. With a key focus on using recycled materials throughout the project, we created a colourful brise-soleil facade of reclaimed theatre light barndoors that were donated from theatres across the country.

With an international reputation for our creative, yet rigorous, approach to engineering we were proud to support several pro bono initiatives, including the Warty Pig Conservation Centre, North Action Village and New Hope Village, helping organisations create spaces that uplift communities.

With PUMA’s Flagship Store on Oxford Street completed just in time for Christmas, it was great to see the new retail facade and internal fitout works brought to life through our combined structural, facade and glass engineering support.

In addition to completed projects, we were delighted to be in the Foster + Partners competition winning team to design the national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II at the heart of St James’s Park. Leading the glass engineering, we are helping to develop the bridge, with a striking balustrade inspired by the late Queen’s tiara.

Celebrating Industry Recognition

The work we’ve done in 2025 stands as a testament to our commitment to excellence, with an abundance of awards recognising our achievements. Banquet Hall, The Henderson was named ‘Project of the Year (International) – Innovation’ at the Society of Facade Engineering (SFE) Awards, in addition to being awarded ‘Best of the Best (Asia)’ at the CTBUH Awards. Norton Folgate continued to be recognised as a benchmark for regeneration in historic urban contexts by winning the ‘Refurbished & Recycled Workplace’ category at the BCO Awards, as well as One Station Hill winning the ‘Commercial Workplace’ category. The Schüco Excellence Awards brought success for 76 Southbank by being named ‘Major Project Winner’ and ‘Overall Winner’. To add to this success, Tower Hamlets Town Hall was also received an award in the ‘Health, Culture & Leisure’ category.

Alongside delivering successful projects, our team has been consistently recognised for our industry expertise, earning invitations to speak, judge, and represent EOC at leading conferences and events. At the beginning of the year, Philip Wilson and Mitsu Edwards showcased 15 years of experience working in Paris at the UK Engineering and Architecture Showcase, hosted by the Department for Business and Trade and British Embassy Paris. Yanchee Lau presented at Zak World of Façades, the leading global symposium dedicated to facade design and engineering, contributing to two high-profile sessions in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Following this, James O’Callaghan hosted a session titled ‘Engineering Transparency in a Changing World’ at Zak World of Façades in Seoul, discussing the evolution of structural glass and the importance of doing more with less to support a sustainable future. The Performance-Based Façade Design conference saw the international collaboration of Damian Rogan, Mitsu Edwards, Lisa Rammig, and Alessandro Baldini from our offices in the UK, France, USA, and Italy to host their panel session “Facade Circularity in Practice: Strategies for Adaptive-Reuse Across Global Markets”. Our Digital Design team co-hosted two presentations at the Simply Rhino Limited Grasshopper UK User Group Meeting with Sybarite. More recently, Brian Eckersley and James O’Callaghan attended the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Miami. Forming part of 164 judges representing 37 countries, Brian chaired the judging panel for the ‘Best Use of Timber’, and James chaired the judging panels for the ‘Future Projects – Infrastructure’ and ‘Future Projects – Sport’ categories.

Designing Change

Digital Design is a fundamental capability at EOC, helping us to streamline engineering and fuel creativity. Providing a well-rounded service to our clients, our Digital Design team has expertise in automation, optimisation, advanced modelling for manufacturing, sustainability, building performance, integration and interoperability, all underpinned by our commitment to research and innovation. In our latest newsletter, we announced the launch of our Digital Design services on the website. Get the full insight here.

With a passion for research and continuous improvement, we want to push the boundaries of what’s possible, consistently developing new tools and methods to drive smarter, greener, and more resilient design solutions. Our Climate Friday thought leadership series returned in 2025 with topics including facade design for component reuse, low-carbon designs and sustainable restoration.

As part of our successful bid to Innovate UK, in partnership with the University of Essex, for a 3-year research project exploring the use of AI in engineering, Saba Arshad recently joined our London office as an AI Research Associate. She will be working at the intersection between computer science and engineering collaborating directly with our digital design and engineering teams.

Life at EOC

We also celebrated the people and places that make our practice unique. In the first video of our new series, Founding Director James O’Callaghan takes us on a guided tour of our LA office. Introducing the team, and speaking with Lisa Rammig, Director and WAF 40 Under 40 Prize Winner, he discovers what it’s like working on the West Coast. Together, James and Lisa explore how we’re addressing climate change and using technology to drive the projects we’re working on. Watch the video interview here.

Our London office headed to Folkestone for our annual summer trip. Taking in the scenery, the group enjoyed two days of architectural talks and tours, sandcastle building, skateboarding at the world’s first multi-story skatepark, and a wonderful dinner at Rocksalt. In addition, our Milan office went on an educational day trip to visit two leading glass processors in Northern Italy, Vetreria 2M and Vetraria Bergamasca Tecnovetro.

Beyond our project work, our teams continued to champion wellbeing and community. From the launch of our London office’s EOC Run Club to our Movember bake sale, The Built World Cup and Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day, we came together to support causes that matter.