BE 1970, University of Western Australia, FIEAust, CPEng, NPER

In the years after graduation John Macartney worked with multi-disciplinary architectural and engineering practices in both London and Australia where, when with CCN, he moved to Canberra as the structural engineer in charge of the Belconnen Mall shopping centre.

In 1981 he joined Irwin Consult, the structural engineers for Australia’s New Parliament House, and over a period of 5 years led design teams for several areas of this building. He then moved to Sydney to open the office of Irwin Consult and over the following 10 years was responsible for the structural engineering on a range of building projects including John Morony Correctional Centre and The Goldsbrough Mort Building redevelopment in Pyrmont. This was followed by 6 years with BG&E in their Sydney office where he established the office quality management system and led teams on a number of projects including Regatta Wharf, Pyrmont and the new administrative building for Edith Cowan University in Joondalup W.A.

Since starting Macartney Engineering Consultants in Sydney in 2002 John has maintained a hands-on role in a range of retail, residential and school projects. He also spent an extended period travelling to Dubai assisting the main contractor for a major shopping centre with the resolution of serious deficiencies in the installation of the in situ concrete post tensioned floors.

Throughout his career John has had an interest in lightweight structures inspired by the tensegrity principles developed by Buckminster Fuller. This interest has led to his development of the long span, light weight space structural system called MacroSpan. Concepts for projects incorporating the system have been developed but none have proceeded as yet. An adaptation of the system called MacroSpan Transformer aimed at providing shelter in remote locations has also been developed.​