Emily Lin
I started working at RWA the week after my last semester finished. My first three days at work was spent on renders for a design presentation to the client for the Australian Wildlife Heath Centre at Healesville Sanctuary.
It has been three years, four computer upgrades and three office renovations since then and I’m still here and I still love it. Prior to finishing uni I did an internship with a company that specialised in public art policy in Taiwan and a brief stint with a marketing and promotions company based in Melbourne that have done campaigns for EMI, Bonds, ANZ, Adidas and Universal Studios.
As an associate, I am involved in all aspects of a project’s delivery. Aside from what is considered to be the design part of the profession which also includes the production of ideas into presentation material, my work also involves preparing fee proposals, client liaison, community consultations, consultant co-ordination, documentation, tender evaluations, contract administration and of course, attending the opening of the project.
An additional part of my job is managing the RWA website, the corporate identity and the media/publications for the practice - this can mean anything from creating new office stationery and making sure new staff in the office knows the RGB/CMYK settings of the company colour to being responsible for the output of the newsdownload which is a seasonal newsletter that is distributed to all of our clients and consultants or preparing project documentation for book editors and award entries.
What do I enjoy most about my work? Being able to witness designs that started life as some scribble on yellow trace become a built reality. Also, working closely with people who are very good, if not the best, at what they do, whether they are architects, engineers, artists, horticulturalists or project managers.
Of the future of the industry as a whole, I would say that Landscape Architecture is a journey with a continuously unfolding path. It encompasses so many different dimensions, and being a relatively young profession, there are more that are still yet to be discovered, explored and determined. At the moment I am considering either a design-based masters or a thesis based PhD.