Joe Lucas

Joe Lucas has spent the past year changing where design sits in the project lifecycle at d&b solutions. Rather than treating it primarily as part of delivery, he has worked to position the Integration Design team as a consultancy service that clients can engage before tender, covering vision development, specifications, drawings and BIM-based deliverables.

The shift has created new fee-based opportunities and stronger client relationships, while Lucas has also brought design and off-site engineering closer together to reduce duplicated work and improve handovers. He says the result is a smaller, more agile team delivering more work than when he joined three years ago.

His own project work has included Ikea Oxford Street, the Sky Sports Premier League studios and high-end automotive design studios. Lucas has also helped develop d&b solutions’ bespoke Canvas LED family after supply problems with a previous manufacturer, including CanvasX for broadcast and XR/virtual production applications.

A First-Class graduate in Live & Studio Sound, Lucas originally expected a different path through audio. He is cautious about AV becoming over-reliant on AI, arguing that it should support rather than replace experience, creativity and human judgement.

Away from work, Lucas completed Sweden’s 315km Vätternrundan cycling challenge in a single stint. Only afterwards did he discover he had been riding with shingles, making finishing the overnight event even more memorable.