Zak Kostura

We promote and drive digital transformation on projects across Arup’s extensive portfolio and offer a growing array of digital services direct to clients. My focus is a continually evolving understanding of how our firm can have a positive impact on the built world through emerging technologies.

My career began with a focus on structural design, and through my work on numerous high-profile projects I gained a deep appreciation for the potential of digital solutions to enhance speed, efficiency and quality. My structural design work on the Sky Reflector-Net and oculus of New York’s Fulton Center enabled me to explore how parametric modeling can mediate between artistic and architectural drivers, complex environmental conditions and precision fabrication. In my work on large aviation projects I led a hybrid team of building engineers and software developers to generate new platforms for rapidly analyzing massive systems and visualizing results automatically, enabling a conventional dynamic between architect and engineer unencumbered by the behind-the-scenes complexity.

My experience in both technical design and emerging technologies helps me build bridges between colleagues, partners and clients. I believe successful digital transformation is as much about human behaviour as it is technology. Collaboration, empathy and mutual respect are at the heart of transformation.