Tinker belle: A Wknd interview with structural engineer and author Roma Agrawal

She began writing books to help people connect, and fall in love with, the mechanics of their world. Her latest is about seven tiny objects that changed it all.

Roma Agrawal’s most recognisable work is The Shard, a 72-storey tower that has dominated the London skyline since 2013 (and is the tallest building in western Europe). She was part of the structural engineering team that worked on that building from 2006 to 2012.

“We have all, as children, built and broken things. That’s engineering, I want to show people that we are all engineers at heart,” Agrawal says. (Steve Ullathorne)

Her newest work is far smaller, a book on some of the littlest man-made objects that have shaped the world. But it’s entirely hers, and represents an arc she is fairly proud of.

As a brown