Ramboll UK have been working with Kids Can Achieve to build a playground at their Centre in Harrow Weald. Kids Can Achieve is a London based charity, which supports children and young people who may have educational, emotional, social or psychological difficulties. Ramboll employees have been donating their time to work on the project, which is now complete. The outdoor space was transformed into a sustainable play area using timber donations from local building merchants.

 

As the project was reaching the halfway point, Graduate Engineers, Linnea Engemann and Cíaran Malik went to work on the site. They were lucky to have nice weather, and had a fun day sanding down the frame of playground and painting them to give them a new lease of life. The foundations were marked out and dug, although Jez bore the majority of the digging work. Jez Foster, a Project Director at Ramboll coordinated the project.

 

As part of Ramboll’s commitment to social responsibility, staff have an allocated Corporate Social Responsibility Day (CSR Day). Ramboll employees can use their CSR Day once a year to support the work of a charity of their choice. The project has also been organised and budgeted by Graduate Engineer, Eddie Leach, to provide an opportunity to further develop his skills. In addition to assisting Kids Can Achieve the project provides a direct way for a number of employees to support a charity and get involved in something inclusive.

 

 

 

 

The Graduate Design Project has been established as one of the most important events of the year for Ramboll graduates. It involved lots of hard work and loads of fun. Throughout this interesting project Ramboll graduates proposed innovative, provocative and exciting ideas for the built environment. This year there were 10 teams, more than any previous year. Each team consisted of four to five graduates from different disciplines and other Ramboll’ s UK offices.

This year’s brief was:

“Choose any city in the world; and develop and present a design proposal, which will improve the lives of its’s citizens.”

 

The briefing launch took place on the 27th of January, at the Building Centre. The day included many inspiring presentations delivered by senior members of the firm. There were two main requirements: the outcome should be newsworthy and representative of what we do in Ramboll. Each team had to submit 4 deliverables within 4 weeks: a 10-minute presentation, a report, a poster and a blog that would be used to track each team’s progress.

Efstratios Gavotsis explains, “As expected, the journey to the final outcome was not linear. We had to get inspired, brainstorm, come up with our own ideas, debate, change our minds, come up with a final idea and present it in a professional way. During this journey, we had people to help and support us as well as constructively criticize our ideas during the two workshops that took place in the London office. These were either experts from the firm or external judges from StudioAR architects. Teams communicated and cooperated through face-to-face meetings, e-mails, blogs and VC sessions. The final day we delivered a presentation to members of the executive and marketing team, design directors and resource group leaders. We received some very positive feedback and flattering comments that encouraged us to improve our designs and continue being creative in what we do”.

The cities chosen were from all around the world: from South to North and East to West. Here you can find the cities and each team’s blog:

1. Christchurch

2. London

http://pearswj.co.uk/gdp2014/

3. Shanghai

http://group3gdp.blogspot.co.uk/

4. London

http://ramgdpgroup4.wordpress.com/

5. London

http://gdp14group5.wordpress.com/

6. Beirut

http://beirut2014.tumblr.com/

7. Mondevideo

http://gdp2014.blogspot.co.uk/

8. Milan

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/229377/GDP-2014/#vars!date=2014-02-07 17:47:56!

9. London

http://gdp2014group9.tumblr.com/

10. Athens

http://rukgraddesignproject2014group10.wordpress.com/

This is the final outcome of our work!

To celebrate the outcome of our work, there is a display in the foyer of the London office. Yanchee Lau, the Associate responsible for this Project, also wrote an article that was later posted on Ramboll’s website. You can read it here:

http://www.ramboll.co.uk/news/ruk/graduate-design-projects-livable-cities

Many things were gained from this process. Not only did we understand the problems modern cities face but we also were able to be creative. We enjoyed ourselves and came up with fresh ideas that will feed Ramboll’s vision on how to create more liveable cities. However, there are also less obvious advantages such as the opportunity to socialize and get to know the rest of the graduates, learn about the regional offices, tick off Chartership objectives, gain CPD hours and get into urban planners’ shoes.