Meet Our Intern Ruth

TGP enjoyed an exciting start to the year with Ruth Ferguson, a third-year Landscape Architecture student at Edinburgh University, on a spring internship with us.

We believe hands-on experience in an office with a multi-disciplined team is a key part of any student’s learning journey, so we were thrilled to have her on board.

From planning and sketching to site visits to see real-life progress, Ruth was certainly kept busy! She shared some thoughts with us before heading back to student life…

What did you enjoy most about your time with us at TGP?

“I really enjoyed seeing the range of projects that are worked on and how the different tasks for each project are distributed within the team. It was also really interesting to discover the variety of hard landscape details such as paving materials/patterns, edging, etc and how you can find inspiration from precedent images of completed projects.”

Was anything not what you expected?

“I didn’t expect there to be as many different reports and documents for each project such as LVIAs which I wasn’t aware of before, so it was interesting to find out a bit more about what they involved and the more practical side to projects in practice.”

What did you find most challenging throughout your internship?

“I found it difficult to sometimes imagine the atmosphere of the sites and how they actually looked and felt to be in with people using the space. I enjoyed the site visit to Lady Lane that gave me an insight into the surrounding area as well as the space itself.”

What have you learned that will be beneficial for your final years at university?

“I will definitely be able to use what I have learned at TGP within my university coursework. Highlighting the sense of place within a site is often talked about by my tutors and through projects I have been looking at during my time at TGP such as Lady Lane in Paisley, and the UHI Distillery in Wick there is a key focus of heritage.

“This aspect of sense of place allows for existing historical buildings and materials to be embraced through reflecting their materials, colour, etc elsewhere in the design which I hope to do in my final year design project. I was also reminded of the importance of communication when presenting initial ideas which I was able to experience in live projects during online meetings where design concepts were clearly explained which I will aim to do when presenting my design concepts at University.”

What was your favourite project that you worked on?

“My favourite project was definitely the public space in Aviemore with the brief to encourage active travel and public use by updating a slightly tired space. I enjoyed this project because there was a lot of creative freedom where I could suggest playful features such as civic paving and colourful signage, and the problem solving of arranging bike features in the most efficient way such as lockers, stands, and charging.”

Bridging the gap between the studio and the site is a vital step for any aspiring designer. We thoroughly enjoyed having Ruth’s perspective in the office and wish her the best as she continues her studies.