Senior promotion and investment in younger generation at landscape architecture practice

Influence Landscape Planning and Design has promoted Kathryn Dunk to principal landscape architect and expanded its design team.

Kathryn joined Newark-based Influence in 2015 as senior architect/landscape designer. Over the last eight years she has delivered award-winning landscape architecture schemes across the country, and become pivotal to the growth of the business.

Influence moved to the ownership of managing director Sara Boland in 2018. Under her leadership the company has significantly expanded its portfolio and team, particularly the next generation of landscape professionals, which Kathryn has also played a part in.

The company places great importance on sharing the landscape architecture profession with young people and enabling them to access the career with the practice at different stages of education.

Over the last 12 months the company has hired four design assistants and one administration assistant. Of which three are graduates and one has joined straight from school after completing A Levels. Influence’s most recent hire is design assistant Ella Cosgrove, who joined the practice having completed an Interior Architecture degree at Sheffield Hallam University.

Sara Boland, managing director, said: “It is wonderful to be acknowledging talent at a senior level as well as supporting the next generation coming into landscape.

“Kathryn’s 25 years of experience and technical and creative expertise are a real asset to the business. Her ability to apply practical solutions to challenges and her sensitive approach to design, plus strong client relationship skills, are why she has become principle. I’m really pleased for her, and I look forward to the next stage of her career.

“Exposing young people to our craft early on has always been important to me, and it feels right to be expanding our design team with lots of new talent and energy straight from education. Entry to landscape is so varied now and no one should be put off by where they are in their education, or career, or by what course they have taken, there is always a route.

“Seeing our junior team grow and the quality of work they deliver makes me very proud. One day they will be the ones designing the green spaces around us.”

Influence continues to invest its time in supporting young people in finding their chosen career. The practice has a long-standing relationship with Caistor Yarborough Academy, a secondary school in Lincolnshire.

Last month (October) members of the Influence team attended a Discovery Day at the school where they ran workshops with Year 8 students, introducing them to landscape architecture and supporting them in a project to design a landscape space.

Chartered practice Influence provides project management, environmental planning, feasibility and concept development, master planning and urban design, landscape design, visual impact assessment, and expert witness.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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