Graduate News : Ellie McEwan (Atkins Bristol)
30th January 2015
Working for such a large consultancy means that I am truly blessed with the variety of schemes I get to work on and the number of different aspects and disciplines I get to work and interact with.
I am currently working on a number of projects which are at different stages in their project life. One project is a Campus design incorporating Health, Education and Sport on one site which sits in a conservation area and encompasses a number of important historic elements. This particular project is going through the tender process where we have invited contractors to bid on winning the construction contract and I have been involved in interviewing the contractors who have submitted compliant tenders. This entails working with the full design team and aiding the client in determining if the submissions comply with the design principles set out in the tender package.
Another project I am currently working on is a large highway scheme which has just been awarded planning permission. As part of the planning approval there are a number of conditions which need to be discharged before works can commence. This has allowed me to go out on site and work with soil and contamination experts to determine ground conditions on an existing site which house allotment land. I have been involved in soil augering to identify topsoil depths and supervised trench digging to aid the contamination investigations.
My latest project is a senior school design which forms part of a large housing development. The location and constraints of the project have seen me travelling around the country meeting with the client, architects, drainage engineers and project managers to bottom out issues and get the scheme through the planning and tender stages in a short timescale.
As well as concentrating on these projects I have become a STEM Ambassador at work (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics). This allows me to get involved with school career workshops and presentations to help promote Landscape Architecture to children wherever possible.
Ellie McEwan
Assistant Landscape Architect, Design & Engineering