Arup graduates collaborate with Google and McLaren
What does work look like in 2040?
This provocation shaped the day’s activities and discussions at the third annual Graduate Seminar Programme hosted at Arup London on 21 June 2019. I had the pleasure of being one of the five young professionals from Arup that hosted 12 representatives from Google and McLaren.
The Graduate Seminar Programme is a set of three seminars hosted by each company’s cohort to foster creative thinking and discuss industry best practices, innovations and insights into future trends. It encourages those early in their careers to develop confidence and skills in all that goes into hosting seminars: budgeting, planning, public speaking, networking; while also giving them the time and space to reflect on their own work.
We began the Arup seminar reflecting on the year 2000 and reviewing the level of change over the last two decades: workplace behaviours, technological influences and legislative pressures. Using the review of change between 2000–2019 as a guide, representatives from Arup, Google and McLaren then evaluated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of predicted industry trends of 2019–2040.
The future trends workshop was followed by a Circular Economy session, in which groups designed products and services using circular economy principles with inspiration from Arup projects. We then toured Arup’s iLab, experiencing a showcase of work that has been developed by the Acoustics and Visualisation teams, and had the chance to experience Arup’s Heathrow Airport VR Soundbooth. Both gave way to conversations about how we may adopt and develop these technologies in the future for use on our own projects.
Will Cavendish, Global Lead, Digital Services at Arup hosted a session on his changing career journey, which prompted reflections and discussions on career paths and life goals. Following this, Rory Sedgwick — a developer on Arup’s software team — and myself — a UX designer on Arup’s software team — provided a demonstration of Arup’s flagship digital product Mobility Mosaic and explained how the digital tool is being used by our clients to inform transport planning decisions.
To end the day, we opened the floor to an informal Q&A panel, inviting our guests to ask us questions about anything from work culture to site visits to billing time as a consultant. I found this session equally valuable in both offering my own reflections on my time at Arup and learning from my colleagues who sit in structural engineering, building engineering, acoustics and environmental consulting. It gave me an appreciation for the breadth of project work happening every day at Arup.
Stay tuned for reflections on the September seminar hosted at McLaren Technology Centre!
