Russell Poole has designed well-over 200 buildings including more than 50 multi-storey buildings. Russell says practising as Phoenix Consulting in post-earthquake Christchurch since 2012 “has been a forensic field day.” His work, in this period, has focused on earthquake recovery, peer reviews, forensic analysis of damaged buildings, reports and repair proposals. It has culminated in an award from the Insitution of Structural Engineers based in London for the seismic resurrection of the 13-storey apartment building at 66 Oxford Tce, Christchurch.

Russell graduated from the University of Canterbury in 1963 with 1st Class Honours. His first three years' experience was in the North Island gaining design & construction supervision experience. 

He then joined Holmes Consulting Group in late 1966 gaining design experience under the expert guidance of founder, Lyall Holmes. In 1970 he attended the University of California at Berkeley graduating with a Masters of Science in Engineering 

Throughout the '70s and '80s, Russell played a pivotal role at Holmes Consulting, becoming Managing Director, overseeing a number of major Warren & Mahoney projects alongside those of other pre-eminent architects.

In the “exhilarating decade” of the ‘90’s, Russell was based in Hong Kong doing some design work but mostly supervising construction. From 2003-9, he tried a rural lifestyle, based in rural Nelson with “some “slow-growing grapes". He did some supervision of high-end houses and worked at the Department of Building & Housing part time. He moved on to work onsite at Haywards Substation in Wellington from 2010-11, becoming a Health & Safety devotee.

In 2012 he returned to Christchurch to work on the post earthquake recovery, much of which was a disappointing demolition derby until he and collegue Peter Boardman were awarded the 66 Oxford Terrace resurrection job.