Born and raised in Sri Lanka and educated in chemistry, mathematics and architecture in Africa and Europe, Balmond went on to join the British multi-disciplinary firm ARUP, and has since worked on a variety of projects with world-famous architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Ito Toyo, and Alvaro Siza. The new geometry that Balmond has created has greatly increased the possibilities of contemporary architecture, freeing it from a closed, static paradigm based on rectangles, triangles, and circles, and transforming it into something dynamic, organic, and full of complexity. Although he makes full use of modern computer and construction technology, the roots of Balmond's ideas are simple algorithms that code a building like genes build an organism. Balmond breathes life into architecture, imparting it with a pulsing, beating heart of its own.

While being contemporary architecture made with the best that technology has to offer, the structures that Balmond designs also reawaken instincts slumbering deep within the people who visit them, stimulating their senses and minds. Rather than just imitating the shapes of nature, Balmond draws out the beauty at the root of nature, and develops it into a spacious geometry. As such, he is the designer most widely recognized for freeing architecture from conventional frameworks.