Week 2: Communication is Key

This Weeks Activities: 

This week Lauderdale Design Group returned from Neocon. When everyone got back to the office on Wednesday they were buzzing with excitement, but also exhausted from their long weekend. It was really fun for me to listen to Joy, Deborah, and Dani talk about all the new products they saw, all the people they met, the designers they reconnected with, and the overall craziness that is Neocon. I loved hearing about it and hope to go in the future! Dani and Deborah were downloading all the pictures of the new products they received onto their computers and talking about how they could apply them to their current and future projects.

Working in autocad corporate project.When I came into work on Wednesday I had to set my computer back up. Last week a professional photographer came to the office and photographed our workstations, so my computer had to be taken down. Once my computer was up in running I had quite a few emails to respond to. I also needed to call back the Gerflor (cushion back flooring) representative about some samples being sent for the Salon project. I also ordered some more wall covering samples that could possibly be used for the salon. Deborah had me work in autocad to fix all the conference rooms on the corporate project. This was great because autocad is one of my favorite programs to use, and one I know well. 

The rest of my day was filled with ordering samples for the ResidenceList of materials used in Residence Hall. Hall project. I ordered 2 more of each of the samples used in the residence hall so that I could make material boards. It came to be a total of 79 different materials used in the project, and I had to order them from 42 different representatives. I had little experience in ordering samples before that day, and let me tell you, it is HARD. Many of the times I would talk to two or three different people before I would talk to the person that actually could order the samples for us. Also- I learned that you have to be aggressive with ordering samples or else you will end up on the phone for twice as long as you need to be. Some of the manufacturers will ask you a million questions about why you need the product and about the project your using it for. Deborah told me I don’t have to answer all their questions and that I just need to firmly ask for them.

Working in photoshop on diagrams for the athletic offices.Coming back from the break, exhausted or not, LDG had a deadline to meet. On Thursday they had a meeting to do the athletic office presentation. Dani worked to put the presentation together all morning while I helped by doing all the photoshop work. I took the plans and created multiple different diagrams that could clearly show which furniture was new and what was existing, as well as four different scheme’s that could be used successfully. I really enjoyed working in photoshop and hope to do some more in the future, I was able to quickly and efficiently work on what Dani gave me and get it back to her ASAP, since we were running on a deadline. 

This week I did some more filing away of samples. We have more fabric samples than we have room in our

Scaled office plans we revised on each of the UT Music Building project doors. materials library for and are receiving even more daily. I also had 2 site visits with Dani to the UT Music Building. This week all of the systems furniture was being delivered and staged. The first site visit Dani and I met with one of the Knoll representatives responsible for our install and did some measuring to insure that every workstation would have the proper outlets. The second site visit Dani and I went through all the rooms we didn’t get to the day before and did more measuring. There had been tape on the walls to show how the workstation were to be placed, but because it was falling off, and some of the outlets were not where they should be, we had to recalculate their location. Each door had a cad drawing showing how the workstation would look in each room and we went through and edited them. Dani said that it is not usually so complicated, but because the workstation are not floating, and our secured to the walls, a lot more thought must go into it. 

This Week’s Focus:

This week I focused on learning about the design phases LDG uses and how they organize their projects. Dani helped me learn about this.

LDG Design Phases

1. Schematic Design- this first phase consists of coming up with an overall concept for the project, finding precedents that can be used, coming up with the game plan on how to tackle the project, and overall rough development of the project. 
2. Design Development- during the design development phase the conceptual and rough developments are materialized into autocad drawings, material selections, finish selections, and furniture selections. The design of the project is completed and awaits approval.
3. Construction Documents- During this phase, the design has been approved and now detailed construction documents are prepared, bid packages are put together, and procurement of FF&E is completed. 
4. Contract Administration- At this phase you continue to monitor the project and make sure that everything is running smoothly. You go on site visits and prepare for installation. You also have your additional services at this point, which means that the things that pop up that were unexpected, become you job. This is basically when the design is outside your scope.  

LDG knows that communication is key in a successful project. Throughout the entire process they are communicating via phone, email, and text with the clients, architects, engineers, project managers, etc. During every design phase a meeting is held with the client for approval. Also, throughout the process meetings are held with the architects and project managers. LDG coordinates with the project manager to create a schedule that gives a timeline for deadlines to be completed. 

LDG organizes all their projects digitally in their computer database. An example of how they organize their folders is like this: storage>projects>ut> within that folder are a list of all LDG’s projects for UT. And then within a certain project folder there will be folders for archives, bid docs, correspondence, issued, working, ff&e, cad, photos, proposals, etc. 

This Week’s Introduction:

Dani Collins, Designer, LDGThis week I am introducing you to Dani Collins. She graduated from UT’s interior design program two years ago and has been working at Lauderdale Design group ever since! She started out as a design intern and was then offered a job upon her graduation. Dani had quite a few different internships throughout school. She worked with HBA, UTK, HGTV, and also had a graphic design internship. She is very good at graphic design and designed all of LDG’s graphics. Dani is so fun to work with and it never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge she has so fresh out of college. She is very funny, always keeps things positive, and loves the Knoxville design community. Her favorite past times are running, hanging out with friends, and experiencing fun new eateries. She is at Bonnaroo this weekend and I can’t wait to hear some stories when she returns!

Comments

[MBR]

Another busy week with LDG! Hope you do have a chance to go to Neocon -- every designer needs to experience it at least once. Continue working with Photoshop -- and any other software program available to you. All of these experiences will help build your skill and knowledge. I think you can crown yourself the queen of sample procurement! Wow -- you ordered a ton of samples, but becoming fluent and more confident in phone communication in the process. Nice!

As I've mentioned with others, you may want to ask the difference between contract administration and construction administration. If they do not separate out the installation phase, is this part of contract administration? Also, have you seen a typical contract used by LDG? Be clear about how they know if the client is going beyond the scope of any particular design phase. Who is the client? The architect or someone else? The structure of how they organize project files digitally is helpful to know.

Great to see the introduction of Dani. She is a wonderful designer and person -- I am grateful that you are able to work with her!

I may have mentioned before to take the time to read over and edit the post before posting. When you can, avoid long sentences. Break long sentences up into several shorter ones for clarity. Get acquainted with using the comma in punctuation where they are needed. Also, when adding images, create a thumbnail. The thumbnail allows the image to be saved at its original size. The reader can click on the smaller image and a larger one opens up. I believe I gave instructions on how to do this in my week 1 post. Let me know if you have questions.

Best to you this week -- I bet it will be another busy one!