Feature

Designing Resilience: Ben Exton’s Mission to Safeguard the Pacific Rim from the Impacts of Earthquakes

14 October 2025

Structural engineer Ben Exton takes inspiration from his experience of living through the Canterbury earthquakes to create better resilience to seismic events by designing ‘shock absorber’-type products for the construction sector. While the heart of his work is at home in Christchurch, it’s also taking him to Japan and other earthquake-prone countries around the Pacific Rim. He talks to Dr Anita Perkins about his journey as one of the founders of Seismic Shift and the reasons why their solutions are not just about safer buildings but also about preventing the long-term negative impacts earthquakes can have on people’s lives, livelihoods, and communities.

Experiencing the Canterbury earthquakes inspired Ben’s pathway into engineering seismic solutions

‘Leading towards an earthquake-resilient world’ is the tagline on Ōtautahi Christchurch-based CEO, co-founder, and structural engineer Ben Exton’s professional profile. It might sound mightily ambitious, but it really makes sense when you understand Ben’s backstory and how he ended up working with his colleagues at Seismic Shift to create earthquake protection systems for residential and non-residential buildings across New Zealand, Asia, and the wider Pacific Rim.

This mahi is close to Ben’s heart, having experienced first-hand the devastating February 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. “My initial inspiration to work in this area came from when I was still at high school during the quakes. I spent a lot of time digging silt in the eastern suburbs. I saw first-hand the toll of natural disasters on people. My great-uncle was a keen gardener, and it really cooked his award-winning garden. Those things really stick with you.”

Living in the aftermath of the earthquakes continued to shape Ben’s thinking during his engineering studies. Ben wasn’t initially sure about people’s suggestions that he should be an engineer, as he wasn’t quite sure what the role entailed. However, he soon found it was a career path that aligned well with his skill set and afforded him the opportunity to make a difference to the city’s reconstruction. “Being based here in Christchurch during my studies was an opportunity to see a city coming through that recovery time. I was also able to contribute to the rebuild in my early years as a consulting engineer and began thinking about solutions beyond Aotearoa, too,” he says.

Aerial view of the first installation of FrontFoot, Central Otago, NZ. Image supplied/amc

The beginnings of Seismic Shift – a 2am eureka moment

In May 2022, Ben, together with Geoff Banks, also a structural engineer, co-founded the company Seismic Shift to focus on developing products that would contribute to earthquake resiliency. The industry was having a positive impact, but on a building-by-building basis. Ben and Geoff sought to turn the New Zealand construction industry on its head and create improved effectiveness through mass production. Ben explains, “In a high-cost world, almost every other overseas industry has standardisation in terms of construction sector products, but in New Zealand, the construction sector is still very bespoke. We needed to create a standardised product that has the trifecta of performing well, being cost-effective, and easy to implement.”

They knew the potential to help through earthquake protection systems was great – given that New Zealand shares the unfortunate connection of high seismic activity with other ‘Ring of Fire’ countries like Chile, the U.S., and Japan.

The idea for Seismic Shift’s first product came to Ben at two o’clock in the morning. For many decades, people had been looking at how they could design a cost-effective method of creating similar base isolation technology to that used under Te Papa – but for residential homes. Ben describes his eureka moment when he envisioned a system centred around a product like a shock absorber for a car. “It wasn’t immediately obvious if it was going to work or not, but the next week I had a really basic sample 3D printed at the local library for $12, and it actually moved as intended!” Ben says.

Since then, Seismic Shift has been working at a rapid pace developing ‘FrontFoot’, a patented system for the protection of homes from earthquakes, and the more recent ‘Quake Defender’, a system for non-residential buildings.

Taking Seismic Shift to Japan

Recently, Ben (in the photo. Image supplied/amc) returned from a week in Tokyo, Japan, where he has been building relationships for several years. Seismic Shift’s current projects there include partnering with local companies on systems to protect shipping container platforms that can house back-up generators and key data centre assets against earthquake damage.

Being connected to the Asia New Zealand Foundation and the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo has really helped in building connections in Japan. For example, in May 2024 Ben’s team was invited by the Embassy to be part of an event showcasing three Kiwi companies developing homegrown New Zealand tech. “We are really grateful for those opportunities. We are a very small team, and it helps us to do a lot more than we could on our own.”

Ben has also benefited from support through the Asia Media Centre’s Media Training, which came at a pivotal time in the company’s development and taught skills that have been useful much more widely.

Ben has learned that job tenure is typically longer in Japan than in New Zealand. He explains: “From a business relationship perspective, you can afford to put in a lot of time and effort because, as opposed to New Zealand, there’s a lot more consistency in personnel. This means there’s a high chance that a person you’re working with at a Japanese company is still going to be there in 10 years.”

There can still be challenges, like the technical phrasing they work with – sitting outside of an interpreter’s expected vocabulary. Luckily, he’s discovered some parts of engineering language are universal: “We've always reverted to the whiteboard because we've all learned the same technical fundamentals, and that's been quite powerful in our communication across borders.”

Seismic Shift's FrontFoot device being installed into the first home, Central Otago, NZ. Image supplied/amc

Living well with nature – the future for Ben Exton and Seismic Shift

Whether in Japan or New Zealand, the work Ben and his colleagues are doing connects directly to positive social and environmental outcomes. Longitudinal studies have shown significant increases in mental health issues, including PTSD, following the 2011 Canterbury and Great East Japan earthquakes. Having more resilient structures contributes to the wellbeing of individuals and communities and has the potential to prevent large amounts of material entering refuse sites.

Through engineering solutions, Ben hopes to continue having an impact on the lives of people living in areas of high seismic activity for years to come. Despite a challenging economic situation, Seismic Shift has just raised more private capital investment and is rolling out new projects both here and abroad over the next 12 months.

Earthquakes aren’t preventable, but preparing and building for them is – and Ben will be leading the charge in this space. “Eventually, we want our technology to be an automatic addition to any building, much like how you feel a bit naked not wearing a seat belt in your car. That's our long-term ambition.”

-Asia Media Centre

Written by

Anita Perkins

Dr Anita Perkins is a research consultant and government policy analyst based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

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