MJ Murphy Ltd - Aquarium & Underwater Restaurant Designer
Civil and Structural Engineers | Aquarium Design Consultants | Coolstore Specialists | Architectural Designers
Aquarium and Underwater restaurant design specialist

Mike Murphy - Curriculum Vitae / Resume

MICHAEL MURPHY
Managing Director

Qualifications
B.E. Civil (Auckland University), MIPENZ

Personal
Born 1948 and married with 4 children, Mike is also a keen jogger, rusty jazz piano player and accomplished artist. Click here to see some of his artwork.

Work Experience
Mike formed M.J. MURPHY LTD in 1982

1985 to present

Became involved in the design of large "Underwater World" aquariums, with initial work on Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World in Auckland. From this point on, Mike Murphy has lead the company to specialise in the design and construction of many major aquariums around the world, as well as continue in the specialist design field of coolstores and sandwich panel buildings. He has been fully involved with all the aquarium and undersea restaurant projects listed on our Projects pages.Because of the many specialised aspects to coolstore and aquarium design, Michael Murphy has developed his personal expertise as a very versatile 'all-rounder', and his skills include concept and architectural design, structural engineering design, filtration and pumping, life support systems, acrylic tunnel design, and rockwork theming design.He has been personally responsible for the development of three 'world-firsts' in the underwater acrylic tunnel field:

  • Namely the widest arch tunnel (5m in Kuala Lumpur)
  • The largest underwater 360º tunnel (in San Sebastian, Spain). Mike was a finalist (in top 3 in NZ) in the IPENZ 1999 Engineering Excellence Awards for the San Sebastian project.
  • In 2004, he was responsible for design of the world's first arch-type underwater restaurant in the Maldives (Indian Ocean).    Mike was a finalist (in top 3 in NZ) in the IPENZ 2006 Engineering Excellence Awards (NZ Innovator of the Year)  for this project.  The project also won the very prestigious Paris-based Hospitality Awards in 2005 for Best Innovative Concept in Catering. And in March 2014 the project gained the amazing title of ‘The Most Beautiful Restaurant on Earth’, as judged by the popular food blog The Daily Meal. .


1976 - 1985
Self-Employed Civil Engineer working in New Zealand for various clients, mainly on design of commercial, industrial and residential buildings, large coldstores and food processing factories, and a full design of 730 berth floating marina in Auckland.
Became specialist on steel-polystyrene sandwich panel design (for coldstores). He also developed considerable architectural design skills in this period, to provide more 'complete' design packages.

1971 - 1975
Employed by four different consulting firms in New Zealand, South Africa and United Kingdom, on multi-storey and industrial buildings, roads, bridges, surveying, sugar refineries, and heavy engineering.

Graduated in 1971 from Auckland University with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering.

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