A look at how the Trust started

The Useful Simple Trust is an award-winning family of professional design and consultancy practices driving change in the built environment. As a Social Enterprise, B Corp, and Employee Benefit Trust, our experienced engineers, architects, designers, consultants, and strategists have worked side-by-side to create innovative, sustainable, and adaptable projects since 1999.

Multidisciplinary thinking since 1999

In the summer of 1999, Chris Wise, Sean Walsh, and Chris Smith created Expedition Engineering as a structural and civil consultancy with a strong ethos for good.

With the aim of doing more relevant work in the built environment, they partnered with Thomas.Matthews – founded by Sophie Thomas and Kristine Matthews in 1998 – and employed like-minded individuals to broaden their skill base.

In 2008, our Founders made the decision to become an Employee Benefit Trust, and so the Useful Simple Trust was born. By integrating our group of key brands under one banner, we have allowed our talented employees to take a leading role in shaping the business.

Over the years, we have used our profits to start new ventures such as Think Up, The Great Recovery, Get it Right Initiative (GIRI), Constructionarium, Enough is Enough, and Low Carbon Accelerator (to name a few), as well as two of our ‘useful’ brands: Useful Projects in 2008 and Useful Studio in 2014.