Three paths that don’t usually meet

1. Building services engineering

I started at a building services engineering practice in Mallorca, writing and supervising technical projects, many of them for hotel chains. Plant rooms, air conditioning, electrics, activity licences, car parks and emergency plans.

That’s where I learnt that regulations aren’t something you study: you apply them to a specific case that hardly ever matches the textbook example. Premises with a courtyard that doesn’t ventilate as it should, a plant room that doesn’t fit where the architect drew it, an occupancy that exceeds the threshold by fourteen people. That’s where it’s decided whether a file goes through first time or spends six months in corrections.

2. Data

Then I spent several years in technology and data analytics, leading teams outside construction. It looks like a detour and it isn’t: it’s where I learnt to build systems that don’t depend on someone remembering. Templates, checklists, version control and traceability.

Everything that today stops a file from getting lost, a periodic review from expiring unnoticed and a request for corrections from coming as a surprise.

3. The building site, from the inside

In 2018 I developed two semi-detached houses with a pool, convinced that by hiring a builder I could delegate the whole process. It didn’t work that way. There were delays, invoices nobody had planned for and workmanship that fell short of what we wanted to deliver. I ended up taking the reins, replacing the trades that weren’t performing and delivering the houses within the original targets, though not without effort.

That led to a construction company of my own and a few years on the other side: hiring trades, paying invoices, arguing over valuations and closing out builds. That’s where you learn what it really costs to build what someone drew — and how many projects reach site with solutions that don’t fit, routes that clash with the structure or budget lines that look nothing like what it ends up costing.

In those years I also managed construction projects in Palma de Mallorca on the owner’s behalf: coordinating everyone involved, controlling cost and following the build for owners who couldn’t be there. It’s work I still do, now under its own name — site supervision and owner’s representation.

Qualifications and registrations

Outside the office

Mallorca isn’t just where I work: it’s where my roots are. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and I know the island well enough to know that premises in Palma and premises in an inland village aren’t processed the same way.

Outside work I enjoy music, I get out on the bike whenever I can and I’m a technology enthusiast — which shows, for the better, in how I run my files.

I also write a newsletter about installations as they really look on site: scenes anyone in this line of work will recognise, and the technical side behind each one. It’s written in Spanish; if you read Spanish, you can subscribe here.

Shall we talk about your case?

If you’re not sure whether your case needs a project or a technical report is enough, whether your premises are a major or minor activity, or what it takes to legalise an installation that’s been running for years without paperwork, I’ll tell you in one call, free of charge. I’d rather tell you that you don’t need to hire me than sell you a project you don’t need.

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