M.F. Simmonds is recorded as a student enrolled on the postgraduate course run by the Architectural Association (AA) Department of Tropical Architecture, London, in 1959-60. The AA student register states that Simmonds was attending ‘lectures only’, indicating he was not eligible to receive the Tropical Certificate at the completion of the course. He appears to have developed a career with the Overseas Division of the Building Research Establishment (BRE), based at Garston, Hertfordshire, by May 1969, when he was sent on a fact-finding mission to Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Ghana. According to newspaper reports, the purpose of Simmonds’ trip was to research low-cost housing projects and school buildings, and engaging with discussions with the local construction industry. In Ghana, he visited the Building and Road Research Institute (BRII), then located on the campus of what is now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, at Kumasi. The following year Simmonds is cited as the author of 'Accommodation Standards For Educational Buildings', a paper published by the Building Research Establishment. In September 1973 he was to return again to Kumasi, where he presented a paper ‘Building for comfort’ at a symposium on 'Environmental Design for Tropical Climate', organised by the BRRI, the Ghana Institute of Architects and the University of Science and Technology. The symposium transactions were edited by BRRI employee, John A.K. Nutsugah, also an alumni of the AA Department of Tropical Architecture (1965-66). In 1980 Simmonds was also responsible for another BRE publication, the ‘Design guide for government buildings in the Caribbean’ (with A.W. Williams).
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