[week.07]

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!

Week 7

Over the duration of my internship, we have had a series of coffee talks open to the interns and the intern committee. We have even had the opportunity to speak with many thought leaders and design leaders. I think this is one of my favorite parts about HOK. High level people taking time to talk and invest in the lowly interns, truly the mark of caring corporation that is invested in it's people.

This past week, we had the opportunity to sit down with founding partner, Gyo Obata, the "O" in HOK. He told of us about his recent travels in Italy and asked us about our interests. Gyo is world reknowed designer and architect. Some of his more recognizable buildings are Lambert Airport, The Air and Space Museum in DC(1976), the Church of Christ Headquarters, and many others, along with his most well-known, the Priory Chapel, which is just a beautiful example of a modern plan worship space. Gyo is a very bright and charming man, and we all felt honored to chat with him so candidly.

Gyo Obata in front of Lambert Airport

Along with my usual tasks, ordering finishes, assisting with rendering, and space planning, I had the opportunity to work with the structures group. Our structural engineers are awesome. My point person with the group is Sal Gimbert. I have gotten to know Sal over the past 2 months. She is incredibly passionate about non-profit work. So she and I share a common bond here. Last weekend, we helped serve local non-profit together. During this time, she mentioned getting involved with structures, and I hopped on board instantly.Sal is awesome as she talks about our Project Haiti below. Also, she's Australian and is the coolest, brightest person around.

Getting to see building from such a functional and pragmatic point of view has taught me a lot. The engineers truly do make the building and a close relationship with your engineers=a more easily attainable design vision. With the structures team, I was able to help with a deadline they have for an existing building project. I was digging through structural drawings, all done by hand 60 years ago, to determine some existing openings and beam configurations which I then recreated in Revit. 

The staff and client relations are managed by the project manager at HOK. The project manager is always the lead on this. You can always tell a project manager at HOK by whether or not they are on the phone. These individuals have been in the field for a long time and know how to manage very professional AND relational interactions with the client. They are always smiling and upbeat in any client scenario with the attitude of "we can get this done." We are trying to get better about managing projects after construction. However, the projects are often too large to manage well in a way that is cost-effective. I have been told by many designers that you learn during the construction process while you can still fix any issues. After project completion when you walk through, these lessons are a bit more difficult but happen more often. HOK sets standards for work places, so these changes within the workspace are easy and require little effort. However, HOK is always happy to work with an old client. Many of our clients are repeat clients, as well as our large corporate accounts. The workplace studies assesments and any program assesments our done by our strategic planning people. They have very detailed technology and software to do a workspace utilization studies, which are actually helping with right now for our client, BJC. Client type is mostly corporate. However, within the HOK office, we have a labs planning group and healthcare goup. So these are common markets as well. Clients almost always look like a large corporate client with a board or a panel or maybe just one point person for a certain project. The approval time frame is much longer the farther up the chain you have to go for this type of client.

Week 7

Monday and Tuesday I spent getting ready for this meeting we had on Wednesday with Andy Akers, a local Theatrical Fabricator who builds sets for concerts, plays, etc.  My boss thought this would be a good person to meet with because he could potentially help us build the exhibit. What was frustrating was that I have spent so much time figuring out how to actually build this exhibit and how to stay within our budget, but none of that was really taken into consideration before the meeting.  I figured out that the most sustainable and cost efficient way to build this would be out of galvanized pipes with special fittings at the corners.  Each frame would cost less than $100 and is cheaper and much more durable than wood (again, this exhibit will be up for a month).  I based the size of the frames on standard sizes of pipes so that we would not have to go to the extra trouble of cutting and threading the pipes.  Anyone who can tie their shoelaces could put these frames together, and my guess is that we will need a lot of extra help.  The pipes could be recycled and easily stored before and after the exhibit so really no material would be wasted.  There was also an issue of stabilizing the frames so I solved that by staking two of the corners into the ground and sandbagging the third, which is on concrete.  There are a lot of factors in building this exhibit, and I had taken a good amount of time to think through them. 

But like the good intern I am, I did a couple more renderings of my design and made a construction document of the frames (Jeff would have been proud) to take to the meeting.  On Wednesday we met with Andy at an outdoor ice cream place in 100-degree weather to talk about the exhibit.  We were there for about two hours talking about different construction methods…wood, scaffolding, PVC…and then in the last five minutes we decide that my original idea is the best.  Oh to be an intern. 

Wednesday night was fun seeing Erin B, Erin M, Teal, and Abbey!!  It was really entertaining to hear about everyone’s internships.  Thursday I took a personal day because I had to drive to Knoxville to sign a lease on my apartment for next year and it had to be done that day.  Friday I spent the day catching up on some things around the office, and mailed out book orders of their new book Moving Tennessee Forward.     

Again, I am not really able to answer the weekly question because we are not an architecture or design firm.  NCDC deals with the big picture of the city and provides standards for architecture, landscape architecture, and community development.  Even if they were to think of a really neat project, they would not be the ones to actually build it.  Most major cities have a place like NCDC that looks at the holistic design of their city and pushes designers in the right direction.  They are not so much concerned with individual buildings, but rather how these individual buildings work together, and they want to keep a good balance of the built environment and green spaces.  Their "clients" are usually governmental agencies such as planning and transportation.  

My people of the week just left!  I will try to post a picture of them next week.  Mustafa and Kyle are two high school students that are in our office this summer.  NCDC is in the process of starting a high school course that students can take on Urban Design, and these two are testing out the curriculum.  They are also entering the Designing Action competition this summer.      

Week 7: Finally Got cad on my Work Desktop

So now i go to my internship three days a week, its all they need me for at Lauderdale and i still have to make money to survive. This week, I came in on Tuesday and was told they finally got the licence renewed for a new desktop to have cad placed on it.  That desktop was, thankfully, mine.  Up to this week I have been slightly limited on what I can do to help because I could not use my educational cad for the professional drawings.  The educational software tag was on everything I opened on my laptop, and that did not fly when trying to make construction documents and we sent them to the firms with whom we work.  Before I was able to start on any cad, however, I had to run some errands.  I did an office depot run to pick up a case of paper, return some ink and pick up a few more office supplies, then I went to a bakery to pick up some cakes that Joy had ordered and brought them back to the office.  Then I was given a pile of samples to go through and pick some patterned fabric to go with the rest of the purposed fabrics in the new dorm.  The fabrics ended up getting approved and they should be in the new dorm for the next 20 some years! Pretty exciting to me! Wednesday I was finally able to use my cad! I was helping to make versions on a perforated metal covering to make the tack boards in the new dorm more attractive. It was a large area, and therefore a whole bunch of circles... needless to say it too all day! crazy stuff.  Thursday, I boxed up a lot of samples to send back to the manufacturers.  Then I called up to school and asked if they wanted any of our samples for the materials library.  David said yes to all our lvt and some of the carpet.  The lvt will be quite helpful when we work on health care stuff next semester.  I then delivered the samples and was told I was done for the day!

Week 7: Client/staff interactions; assessment processes

Our clients this summer have mostly been from UT in a joint venture with architecture firms.  When we interact with our clients, we set up meetings at our office or the office of the architecture firm we are working with.  The clients are also welcome to call with questions to our office phone and often even Joy's cell phone.  There is a trusting and respectful relationship produced through these actions.  When finished or almost finished with a job, we give the clients a questionnaire.  When it comes to leaning from previous projects, we keep files on the server with final break downs about each completed project.  The break downs help to keep in line everything we learned.  Helping keep the clients informed is another part of our jobs.  We make sure to make brochures or booklets with all information on upkeep and updates.  When it comes to the dorm, we have made sure to choose fabrics that will be easily cleaned, will last through all the students that will pass through the dorm and are still beautiful.

New People:

This week I met Anne. She is the woman at UT in charge of purchase approval with the three UT project we are working on.  She came to our office to approve the desking systems for the UT football coaches addition. 

Week 7

This was a busy week. Rachel and I organized Kravet, Duralee, and Kasmir fabric area in the resource library. Kravet fabric books are now categorized by color and book title. Kasmir was located several places in the library. Rachel and I located all of the Kasmir books and put them in one location. Duralee was located in two places. We were able to fit all Duralee in one area. The fabric books from the same vendors are now located in one location which is easier and quicker for the designer to find what they need. Also this week I called vendors about pricing and availably, as well as ordering memos for the designers. Later in the week Yessick was getting ready for the SHE Expo that was located at the downtown Convention Center. Yessick designed the main stage for the event and had a booth during the Expo.  SHE Expo had Nicholas Sparks, Giuliana and Bill Rancic talk on Saturday.

This is a picture of the Giuliana and Bill Rancic sitting on the stage that Yessick's Design Center designed.

Yessick’s clients are mainly family home owners with small local business clients. The staff and client relationship in the residential is professional as well as personal. The residential design is personal to the client, but also to the designer. The homes of the clients show their personal style and portray who they are. The clients have to be able to trust the designers with personal stories and getting their styles across to people. Yessicks has several designers with different styles of design.  The designers develop a long term relationships with their clients and keeps in contact with them. Marsha, who is the owner and Marla, who is the manager, monitor the designer’s projects. The designers learn from every project. Every project is something new, and challenging. They learn how to better read their clients and how to organize their time. Any of Yessick updates can be viewed to the public through their facebook page. There is no post occupancy evaluations or square footage evaluation.

This is Kathie Proffitt and Jonathan speaking at the SHE Expo about decorating their house for Christmas. Kathie Proffitt is an interior designer as well as a mother. She graduated from Red Bank High School which I did too.