Graduate News: David Bailey

  27th April 2015

I have almost completed my first year within the industry working as a Graduate Landscape Architect at the Environmental Dimension Partnership in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. I am predominantly involved in Landscape Design, a growing discipline within the company with high aspirations for the future. I often handle a variety of projects at any given time; these can vary in size and complexity and also be at outline, reserved matters or detailed planning stages.

I have been privileged to work on some high end projects early in my career. The best to date was creating a landscape scheme for prestigious Football Club in north London. The brief was to provide a landscape strategy that would help to visually mitigate a new set of player’s facilities, allowing the building to blend into its existing surroundings and obscuring it from adjacent property overlooking the land. We were happy to hear that the application is going forward!

 Not every project handed to you is going to be prestigious in nature; many will consist of hard and soft detail plot plans for housing developments. It is a fact that this work will make up 40% of what you do on a day to day basis, the ‘bread and butter’ if you will, but that is not to say that you can’t still be creative!

As a graduate I have also been involved in a lot of survey work; from conducting Photoviewpoint surveys for LVIA and EIA, to snagging contractual works that have been carried out from our plans. The most exciting part of the job is the thought that one day I will be able to walk through somewhere I designed which began life as a blank canvas.

My recommendation to you: work hard and strive to learn as much as you possibly can throughout your degree, it will provide you with a firm footing for your professional and personal progression.