Lewis Williams

Lewis is a Graduate Structural Engineer working for Acies Group in their Civil and Structural Engineering team in their Manchester office.  He works on a large range of bespoke projects from football stadiums to schools and private houses to retail developments.  Lewis is currently working towards his chartered engineer status with the support and help of Acies.

Lewis graduated from Cardiff University with a First Class Honours Degree for a Masters in Architectural Engineering.  The degree is accredited by both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers.  His course covered a range of topics centred around buildings and their designs; from the aesthetics to structure of the building and the environmental impacts to the operation.  Lewis has continuously achieved high standards throughout his education with his most recent being his First class degree along with the 08/09 Ove Arup Prize and the Norman Thomas Travel Prize in Civil Engineering “for exemplary performance in year two worthy of recognition”.

Before going into higher education he obtained 9 GSCE’s and 4 A-Levels (with 3 of the 4 being ‘A’ grades) along with 2 AS-Levels.  These A-Levels where in Graphic Design, Mathematics and Chemistry; with his highest mark in Graphic Design where he was able to use his design and imagination skills to his full potential to produce many high quality pieces of work.

Whilst at University, Lewis developed many new skills.  He has been able to use his imagination and expand his design skills in many study based projects that he has been faced with.  One of these projects was the expansion and re-design of a church centre into a new community centre and library; creating a central space for the wider community to gather.  The most recent of these projects was the group design of an Orthopaedic Hospital which required project management, ability to work in a multi-discipline environment, time management and team working.  Many of these projects are theoretical based although their application is for real scenarios.  

Technical Poster for the design of the Hospital. 

On his summer placement during University, Lewis was able to see the real application of the knowledge that he has learnt and was able to work on many real-life projects.  His experiences included working with 2-D and 3-D graphics packages as well as computerised/hand design calculations.

Whilst working during his vacation periods he has also been able to amount several achievements.  A few of these being:

•  Working for Kirman design on their Gold Medal RHS Tatton 2006 Show Garden, Large Gold Medal Winning 2009 Charity Show Garden and Prize winning Southport Flower Show 2007 Show Garden

• Helping out on a Gold Medal winning Visionary garden at RHS Tatton Park Flower Show 2009 

• A member on the Award winning ‘Plant Area’ team at one of the best Gardens Centres in the UK

• Working as part of a placement with a top Engineering consultancy firm and successfully achieving sponsorship for his final year of education

Lewis enjoys the challenge that comes with engineering and the ability of being able to express his ideas in buildings.  Lewis comments: “The architecture of a building is an important way of tying it in with the surrounding.  With the ever increasing awareness with the environment, it makes it important to learn new ways of building and living with nature rather than destroying it.  Gardens are a great link with nature that is one of the reasons why I love gardening.  Different gardens have many different functions, from a place to relax to a working environment where the full potential of a garden can be harvested.”

Lewis was encouraged by his Parents to be involved in gardening and is a main hobby of his.  It is a subject that thoroughly interests him and something he loves to do in this free time.  The knowledge he has obtained about gardening has come from working at the Garden Centre and helping out on the Show Gardens.  He has previously designed a few function-able gardens for family friends and now focuses most of his efforts of his Parent’s new garden.  This is a mature garden which has a vegetable and fruit garden as well as five ex-battery hens.

With the knowledge that Lewis possess about gardening, it helps him to understand the necessary link between buildings and their environment.  This is so that they are working in harmony so that we as a society are not destroying the environment, in our own ignorance, for future generations.