About

A life in
interesting places.

I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, in a mixed-religion family, in a place where the community fabric was frayed. That gave me a particular kind of education — one not many would choose, but one that taught me a lot about what happens when people can't find their way to each other, and what's possible when they can.

Formation

Engineering

I trained as a mechanical engineer. Systems thinking, first principles, the discipline of understanding how things actually work before you try to change them. That formation has never left me — it's in how I read a situation, how I ask questions, what I find satisfying about a problem well solved.

Relevant Projects

  • Barangaroo South precinct, Sydney — engineering design and BIM coordination across multiple major tenant fitouts including PwC (~100,000m² across 20+ floors).

Relevant qualifications

  • Chartered Engineering Technologist, EngineeringNZ and Engineers Australia

Practice

Sustainability

I spent years in sustainability consulting across Australia and New Zealand. Building performance, NABERS ratings, green certifications — serious work, and I'm glad I did it. But I kept arriving at the same frustration: we were getting better and better at optimising parts, while the whole stayed stuck. The technical solutions weren't the hard part. The hard part was always relational.

Relevant Projects

  • PICAC Narre Warren, Victoria — led bid through to construction; pioneered an integrated procurement approach achieved for cost-equivalent with the code-minimum budget.
  • Victorian Pride Centre, Melbourne — led holistic sustainable design from concept through planning approval.
  • Hazelwynde / Yarra Valley Water, Melbourne — led development of a regenerative framework for a 350ha greenfield site north of Melbourne's CBD, in partnership with the University of Melbourne.

Relevant qualifications

  • Regenerative Practitioner, Regenesis Group and CLEAR

Realisation

The Turn

That friction eventually led me somewhere I hadn't expected — to regenerative design, living systems theory, and to a growing conviction that the biggest leverage points in complex situations aren't technical. They're about how teams communicate, how communities make decisions together, how we close the gap between what we know we should do and what we actually do. Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.

Relevant qualifications

Complexity practitioner and facilitator

  • SenseMaker® Narrative BaseCamp, Cynefin Co. (2022)
  • People Need People Facilitator, International Bateson Institute (2021)
  • Warriors for the Human Spirit, Berkana Institute / Margaret Wheatley (2018)
  • 2016 — Zenergy Global, The Art of Facilitation
  • Level 1: Foundations of Unfoldment, Aletheia Coaching
  • Level 2: The Alchemy of Unfolding Individuation, Aletheia Coaching

Founding

First Steps in Business

In 2019 I launched my own consulting practice — which meant learning, the hard way, what it actually takes to build something from nothing. The ups and downs of that period were real. But it also led, in 2021, to co-founding Toa Homes — a joint venture with Ngāti Toa, an iwi whose values around land, people and long-term thinking turned out to be a better fit for the work I wanted to do than anything I'd found in the conventional development sector.

The Present

Business

Today I'm co-founder and co-director of Living Systems Development, and I spend most of my time on Peachgrove East — a net-zero Passive House cohousing community in Hamilton that tries to be what it says it is, all the way down. I'm drawn to the question of how groups govern shared resources well, and I keep finding my way back to Elinor Ostrom's work on collective action — not as a framework to apply, but as a way of seeing. I'm also considering a Masters in Systems Oriented Design at AHO in Oslo, because the questions that interest me most are still the ones I haven't been able to answer.

Personal Life

I live in Aotearoa New Zealand with my partner Naomi and our dog Orla. I follow my curiosities. I learn every day. And I'm continually moved by the struggles and joys of human life — including my own.

"Ben has been a cornerstone of our work at Toa Homes and with Ngāti Toa over the past four years. His ability to work sensitively across complex stakeholder groups is exceptional. With quiet confidence, he brings technical depth and practical wisdom to every project."

— Helmut Modlik, Chief Executive Officer, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira