Peter Ridley will join a 300-strong team working across the country

Atkins鈥� China business has hired Peter Ridley, a former partner at Foster + Partners. Ridley joins after 10 years at Fosters as senior director for architecture and will join a 300-strong team working across offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen.

Atkins鈥� projects in China include the Sonjiang, a 400-bed hotel sunk into a former quarry surrounded by water, and Xi鈥檃n Airport (both pictured), which are both currently under construction.

Xi'an airport

Atkins has cut its worldwide staff down to 16,500 from 18,017 in 2008, due to the global downturn, but it recently reported a pre-tax profit rise of 12% to 拢102.7m on turnover of 拢1.5bn for the year ended 31 March 2009.

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