I interview
Annie Baillie is an Associate Director of Landscape Architecture at Place Dynamix in Dubai. She tells Landscape ME why it’s so important for young women who are breaking into the Landscape industry to have a mentor when starting out in their careers. At what age did you realise you wanted to become a Landscape professional? I didn’t know about Landscape Architecture until I attended a careers convention at the age of 16. Once I read more about it and realized it combined my love of drawing and the outdoors there was no looking back! Where did you study to become a Landscape architect and why did you end up moving to the Middle East? I first studied at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK and then moved to Birmingham where I completed my degree and post graduate diploma. During my time at Birmingham, I started to work part-time for a local Landscape Architecture practice, Munro+Whitten, in my home town of Leicester, in central England. I was offered a full-time position after completing my studies and Don Munro, Practice Principal, mentored me throughout my time at that practice. Almost 12 years later my husband’s work brought us to Dubai in 2012. I was here in Dubai for 8 months before finally finding employment as a Landscape Architect with Place Dynamix and where I have been ever since. Did you specialise in any particular area? What is Place Dynamix best known for? My personal specialism is planting design, but that said, I have experience in a wide range of projects and I consider myself to have a broad knowledge of development sectors and the different aspects of the Landscape Architecture discipline associated with those sectors. As a design practice Place Dynamix has been fortunate to establish a broad portfolio of landscape, masterplanning and urban design work here in the UAE, the wider GCC region and further afield. We endeavor to make places special. One of the key questions we ask ourselves when working on project is “Would I want to go there? Would I visit this place?”. We have worked on all types of projects – residential communities, commercial hubs, developed guidelines, been third party reviewers, and found ourselves working alongside some of the world’s premier architects and designers on several projects. While we may not be identified with a singular style, I feel we are respected as being collaborative designers towards a holistic solution.
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Women
in Landscape We meet the inspirational women who are designing the future
