Meet The Team
We place an emphasis on people – our colleagues, our clients, and those we collaborate with. Working together we develop projects that respond to the needs of people, planet, and the wider communities in which they are situated.
Adam Ash
Managing Director and Sector Lead (Midlands/North) | BSc (Hons), DipLA, CMLI
Responsible for the overall management and direction of the company, Adam also leads the Manchester studio team ensuring a high standard of design is balanced with deliverable solutions and robust risk management. Part of the Plincke team since 2008, he brings 25 years of experience in designing and delivering high-quality sustainable spaces, across both private and public sectors.
His vast knowledge spans streetscape, civic squares, historic spaces parks and gardens, higher education campuses and colleges and schools, including SEND.
A master at working with design teams to meet client requirements and devising complex design solutions to meet multiple end user needs, Adam also has a strong understanding of the management of client and stakeholder expectations to deliver sustainable, robust, and affordable solutions within the external environment.
Known for clear communication, rigorous attention to detail and quality, he
delivers projects successfully utilising proven project management skills, acting as lead consultant and contract administrator for landscape projects up to a value of £6M.
He has also had great pleasure in successfully mentoring junior staff on the Landscape Institute ‘Pathway to Chartership’.
Gavin Woolston
Sector Lead-South | BA (Hons), MA, CMLI
Gavin leads our London studio, successfully managing a wide range of projects from inception through to construction delivery. He joined Plincke in 2018 bringing with him 15 years of experience from UK and North African projects.
Gavin combines strong design development with creative flair and expert presentation skills. He designs thoughtful and functional landscapes for a range of settings, from cemeteries (including the the award-winning Hemel Hemstead cemetery) and new build urban developments to educational landscapes.
Addressing specific site constraints such as landscape screening, the use of
recycled/reclaimed materials and vertical greening, Gavin is skilled in Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments, biodiversity net gain and the Urban Greening Factor to make sure his projects meet sustainability and environmental goals.
Stuart Ross
Senior Landscape Architect
BA (Hons) Arch, PG Cert Arch, PG Dip LA, AMLI
Stuart’s technical ability, in both 2 and 3D mediums, means he is ideally suited to lead on large scale hard and soft landscape projects requiring close attention to detail and coordination across disciplines.
Stuart has over 19 years’ experience in the public and private sectors with vast expertise in the development of strong design concept and landscape rationale through to realisation and delivery on site, working on projects both in the UK and abroad.
With extensive knowledge in construction detailing and material specification and close coordination with site teams, Stuart is comfortable working at all RIBA work stages, liaising with clients, end users, design teams, planning authorities, and site teams.
Stuart has acted as Lead or Project Landscape Architect on a number of high-quality, high-value public realm schemes, both residential and education-based, including prestigious developments like Freemen’s Common, University of Leicester, Nexus Building, University of Leeds and the Henry Royce Institute, Manchester.
Adept at developing and finalising concept proposals with the client team, he also sees through successful design and technical organisation for external works, planning approval and full coordinated BIM and 3D rendered outputs. Working along the main contractor, he finally provides an exhaustive construction suite of information whilst overseeing delivery and quality on site.
Sam Scholes
Landscape Architect / BA (Hons), MA Water Management & Biodiversity, DipLA, AMLI
Sam has an expertise in blue-green infrastructure and biodiversity that stems from a 2-year MA focusing on flood water management and aquatic ecologies. He has led on our projects involving SUDs and watercourse restoration, demonstrating alternative approaches to the traditional engineered methods to tackle flood risk.
Sam joined the practice in 2014 and provides design and technical support to the Urban Parks and Education teams. He has developed a number of Round 1 and 2 lottery applications for park projects, including interpretation strategies.
Emily Jones
Education Landscape Architect | MA, DipLA
Emily has built her landscape architecture career around a diverse portfolio focused on children, families, nature, and landscape. With valuable Qualified Teacher and Early Years Professional Status, alongside Forest School Leadership skills, she brings practical insights to design, grounded within the education and play sectors.
As an accredited professional with Learning Through Landscapes, Emily is committed to creating designs that mitigate the impacts of climate change on the environment.
She strives to include nature into education and play landscapes. Emily has continued to build her landscape architecture practice at Plincke with key roles on primary and secondary school projects.
Marina Zhukova
Senior Landscape Architect /BIM Specialist, Masters LA, CMLI
Marina is a Chartered Landscape Architect with experience on international multi-disciplinary landscape design projects for campuses, residential and mixed-use schemes. Marina also has 5 years’ experience of design and modelling in line with BIM level 2 deliverables. She is expert user of
Revit for landscape design, and experienced in the use of Adobe CS, Sketchup, Vray, Rhino+Grasshopper softwares.
Working within a BIM setting to deliver site analysis and landscape design, Marina is highly adept at working within large design teams in collaboration with specialists and clients, providing the relevant BIM delivery on projects in accordance with the DfE information standards.
Marina’s projects include Mount St Mary’s School in Leeds, where she was BIM lead on a complex site with steep level changes and the large re-build of East Coast College in Great Yarmouth which required BIM input from stage 3+, preparation of IFC and Cobie data exports and model coordination.
Pragya Agrawal
MA Landscape Architecture, CMLI
BArch Architecture
Pragya is one of senior landscape architects, working out of the London office. She has been part of the Plincke team for almost five years in total. A dual qualified chartered landscape architect and architect, she has considerable experience in the design and delivery of projects of all sizes both in the UK and abroad.
With demonstrable experience on a range of master planning, public realm, transport, games, leisure, hospitality and industrial led landscapes, Pragya has successfully coordinated and liaised with large multidisciplinary teams as well as delivered small scale projects from inception to completion. With
robust technical and graphic skills, she can competently tackle both hard and soft landscape detailing and high standard delivery.
With Grade II listed Birbeck Pier in North Somerset, 49-acre Tachbrook Country Park and Haringey housing project St Anns in her portfolio, Pragya has also turned her skills to education, where she has been responsible for the tender and construction information for SEN schools like Edith Borthwick in Essex, as part of the DofE priority school building program. She is accustomed to collaborating on projects and delivering strong ecologically friendly solutions and biodiversity net gain.