Principal Designer, Francis Design Consulting
Business, Design, Fleet, Innovation, Technology, Tuesday
Trained at the Central School of Art and Design he worked as a cabinet maker before in 1967 working with Architect Norman Foster on a wide range of projects including the glass wall of the Willis Faber and Dumas building in Ipswich. He was for 6 years a director of Foster associates in London and the managing director of Foster France.
In 1982 together with Peter Rice he created RFR, the Paris based engineering company, where among other things he was responsible for assisting IM Pei with the cable structure of the Louvre Pyramid using yacht rigging technology. He has lived in France since 1976 where he started his career as a yacht designer with several large sail boats. His first motor yacht was the iconic ECO followed by several innovative vessels like Senses, Golden Shadow, Sultan and the 118-meter Yacht ‘A’ for which he was the Technical and Naval designer a joint project with Phillip Starck. In 2005 he was engaged by RCCL Celebrity Cruises to design the exterior of the Solstice class a series of five 120,000 GRT Cruise Ships.
His most recent large yacht was the 124-meter Golden Odyssey built by Luerssen. Martin’s current projects include: - The just opened headquarters for Vitsoe in Leamington Spa and a project for flood resistant housing with Kabina in the UK and in yacht design, technical development of the Mercedes-Benz Styled yacht for Silver Arrows Marine and several confidential large yacht projects.