The focus this week has been on our healthcare project - I am getting to see how the design process works from schematic design to document completion. We kicked off the week with a staff meeting to get everybody caught up on current events. I love working at Smee+Busby - we are like a big family. Everyone here is so kind, welcoming, and they have really taken great care of me!
This week I met a lot of new people at the meeting with our healthcare project. I met the president and vice president of the hospital as well as many other people who head up their departments – I learned a lot from them. They know their departments very very well and as designers we should never stop trying to learn from other people. They are able to give us guidance and relevant input on design elements within the space, and even come up with great ideas themselves that we can use to better our design.
I am focused on making floor pattern designs for a healthcare project. We are collaborating with the client about what general direction we want to go in, and Susan and I are designing the floors, choosing finishes for a registration desk, and looking at paint colors for the walls. It is a big renovation project - they have to work around the schedule of the hospital which can be very trying.
Staff and client always interact differently on every project. It depends largely on the client - each one is different. We have relationships with clients that we have been sustaining for over fifteen years, and clients that we are just now building new trusting relationships with. The relationships are built over time based on performance, reliability, trustworthiness, and following through on what you say. Our long-term clients are very relaxed around us and we always refer each other to help each other with business.
For assessment, we always do a one year warranty check. On furniture, whatever the warranty is, we maintain it and take care of issues that way.
We are always learning from our experiences and our mistakes, no matter how experienced we are in the industry. This is a big part of it. Susan tells me that when she started, she kept a journal of things that she would write down, whether it was a mistake, important lesson, or happy event. She would always write down important lessons so that she could learn from it for the future. A great lesson she taught me is to always know ahead of time if you can get the furniture into the building - we all remember the story that Sandy told us about the conference table.
When future updates are needed, typically the client will call us - we are not in the building, and more often than not, no news is good news. With clients that we are constantly doing work with, there is always something to be done, so we are frequently hearing about updates, etc. just from being in contact. The facilities budget cycle of a business also dictates how much updating ensues.
Post occupancy evaluations are not held formally - you'll know if a client is having a problem with something. We make sure to show plenty of samples on the front end of a project so that the client can become familiar with all of the products they will truly be interacting with. We brief them on cleaning instructions, and beyond that, there is nothing you can do if the client wont take care of the product that is in the space. It is their property even though it is your baby. Again, no news is good news. Anything they ask for help with we will do.
The client types that we are involved with are all across the board. We are involved in healthcare, government work, private sector, hospitality, community, the list goes on and on. Many of our clients have hundreds of employees and do not want us to release their information - some of them hardly let us take any pictures. Their corporate information is very sacred to them!
Here's a photo of steve cutting a birthday cake :) we had lots of birthdays this summer! ;)