Peter Hansford, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers

The headquarters of the Institution of Civil Engineers is imposing with a capital I. Barely yards from Parliament Square and facing the Treasury across the road, its exterior has the Portland stone portico and columns of London’s most serious public buildings.

Inside, the expansive, wood-panelled reception area is lit by a lofty, glazed cupola, illuminating the portraits of eminent engineers and pictures of the great and iconic feats of past and present engineering. A blue plaque sits over the reception desk, declaring that Thomas Telford lived here.

It’s enough to make any engineer feel the weight of history. Peter Hansford, the institution’s new president, certainly feels the need to make the present rather more present.

’I’ve only been in this office for four days,’ he said, stepping out from behind his mahogany desk and into the large room where paintings of the SS Great Eastern and the Clifton Suspension Bridge face each other on opposite walls.