I'm a design engineer based in Montreux, Switzerland. Watchmaking was my first calling: I passed the entrance exam for the microtechnics school in La Chaux-de-Fonds, then chose to study Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes instead. For twelve years I've developed precision products in London and Switzerland, mostly lighting, from first sketch to factory production, and won three international lighting design awards along the way. Today I'm coming back to where I started, designing my own mechanical watch with a complication.

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HOW I DESIGN

I start from one principle: a complex system should be legible. Whoever uses it, services it or pays for it should understand how it works, and never feel shut out of the mechanism. That's why I keep mechanics, optics, electronics and form on the same table from day one, instead of handing them over one after another. When they're resolved together, the object gets simpler, not busier.
 

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HOW I WORK, IN THREE PROJECTS

• IQ Jack: a connector that carries power and data through spring-loaded pogo pins, while letting the luminaire rotate freely or lock in place. A small part that solves a mechanical, electrical and user problem at once.

• Windsor Castle, Queen's Library: I measured every century-old shelf on site, then designed a modular lighting system to fit them, and followed it through installation.

• Leica hand grip: a single bent stainless-steel wire, refined over 30 iterations and 15 prototypes, now produced in Switzerland at Thür + Co. AG, with a dedicated bending jig and mycelium packaging.

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WHERE I WORK
Alongside my role as senior product design engineer, I run mmD, my own independent engineering office. It carries my personal projects, from a custom Triumph motorcycle to an electric bamboo bicycle, as well as occasional commissions, such as ultra-narrow-beam light modules for the art group Random International.

MY PHILOSOPHY
• Precision over perfection, intention over volume.
• Good design is a form of respect: for time, for matter, for the people who use it.
• I'm not chasing novelty. I'm looking for coherence between purpose, mechanism and use.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR NOW

A team where mechanics, electronics, optics and design are conceived together, and where engineers are trusted to take a product from the first question to the finished object.