"Luckiest" student describes Parliament Hill as "awesome"
While crawling through the nooks and crannies of the buildings on Canada’s Parliament Hill, building engineering co-operative education student Margarita Kotruts discovered a passion for heritage structures. Along the way, she has seen the Peace Tower from top to bottom, experienced the beauty of the Library of Parliament from a balcony view available only to insiders, and squeezed through the space between the roof and brick walls of parliamentarians’ offices.
Kotruts almost gushes as she describes her experience. “I think I was the luckiest co-op student going to work that term.” The fact, however, is that she worked hard and put herself in a position so that all the pieces could fall together, beginning with her entry in the 2012 Ottawa Eco-Logical Student Green Building Competition.
During the competition’s three-day event, 40 university and college students were assembled in teams of eight to work on a green-building design project. “We designed a housing facility for a community, attached to a health centre,” she explained. Kotruts’ team placed third, and she met her future work term supervisor as a result of her involvement in the competition.
“I had a lot of questions for the organizers,” she said. Coincidentally, the organizer answering her queries was Concordia building engineering alumnus Bara Al-Obaidy. At the end of the competition, Kotruts emailed Al-Obaidy to thank him. “Throughout the summer I kept emailing Bara, who worked for Cleland Jardine Engineering Ltd. (CJE) in Ottawa. And at the end of the summer, they contacted me and said there might be an opportunity for a work term. I jumped at the chance, and I didn’t even know it was for a project on Parliament Hill.”
The work term was offered to Kotruts soon after her Skype interview with Al-Obaidy and André Marcoux, a partner at CJE. The main project was an audit review of Parliament Hill.
The work involved collecting information about the condition of buildings and structures to plan maintenance and repair projects. It included numerous site visits, structural and architectural evaluations of various building components, researching government documentation, note-taking and keeping a photo log.
“The best was inspecting the Parliament Hill roofs … on them and under them. I got to climb past the observation deck of the Peace Tower into the roof space. That’s where the hatch is, and I stood next to the flag pole on the Peace Tower. Fortunately, I’m not afraid of heights,” said Kotruts. “Another highlight was being in the Library of Parliament. It was recently restored inside and outside, and is absolutely beautiful. It was thrilling to crawl in the space between the library’s interior dome ceiling and the distinctive outer cone roof to inspect the structure of the roof.”
The opportunity in Ottawa also provided Kotruts with a reason to move away from home for the first time. “I was super excited to get a place on my own and found a rental literally seven minutes from my work,” she said. “I really enjoyed taking care of all my stuff, although the car broke down a few times, so I had to call my dad. I enjoyed the whole experience. New city, new people, first real engineering job.”
According to Kotruts, her work term in Ottawa clarified her career path. “I know I want to deal with heritage buildings. It’s the historical aspect that I really enjoy,” she says. “People don’t seem to think about restoration any more. I think you have to invest in what you already have and make that optimal.”
Finding a work term that measures up to her experience in Ottawa will be a special challenge for Kotruts. “Parliament was perfect,” she says. “Nothing will ever compare.”
Related links:
• Concordia’s Institute for Co-operative Education
• Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• The Parliament buildings