Week 9: The Ending

I can't believe it has been 9 weeks at ESa. Time sure does fly by really quickly and what a wonderful experience it has been!  

This week at work I've spent the majority of my time working with Kearra Barkley. Kearra is does some Health care but she does a lot of Education work as well. I love doing things for Kearra because she explains things thoroughly, she likes to gives me tips (which are VERY helpful) and when I ask her questions she answers them even if they are really dumb. So I've been pulling different types of tile for a project in Winchester, VA for a university called Shenandoah. It started out that I was just pulling looks but then we have started pricing things out and I've had to go back and find tile for cheaper. Kearra has taught me lots of tricks like try to buy as much from the same company as possible because then it will be cheaper and their sizes will match up. I've also spent my week pulling boards together, ordering tons of samples, and sending back lots of carpet. We are kind of in between jobs right now, I feel like everyone has deadlines within the next few weeks but right now everyone is just busy working away. I also got to spend some time this week with Leslie going over our evaluations of what it's been like at ESa. I've thoroughly enjoyed going over those with her and seeing things from her perspective and not my own. I feel like I've learned so much and they've been able to steer my in the right direction of what else I need to grow in.

What happens when you have a lot of projects and not enough space.

The design philosophy at ESa is "Anyone who has a passion for design should also have a passion for humanity." Mr. Earl Swensson himself has founded ESa around this philosophy and this is what he asks of the designers at his firm. Which I believe to be very true at ESa, before I came Abbey told me that ESa is a very special place and very different from a lot of other firms. Everyone that is there is a team, which they have done their best to make it this way. It's one thing to say that, it's another thing to actual do it. I have watched over the course of this summer as the designers have been passionate about the work they do and seen the underling message of what can we give to the people. I've seen it in the luncheons with have with different companies where we are taking about ergonomics and how can we better improve the lifestyle of nurses, make better chairs for them to sit in and design that will benefit them so they can give back to the community around them. I've been in informals where designers ask lots of questions of how things can meet code or colors we can add for the clients benefit or ways they can accomplish something impactful for the designers. These people I'm surrounded by do not only care about humanity but they care about the people they meet with and the community they work with. I think it is one of the reasons they are so good at what they do. They listen to the needs of others and try to meet them. And when they see issues and see ways they can address things they do. And people know that. The reps that come as them there opinions and how they can better their products to meet these needs. I've seen this design philosophy been lived out at ESa, which I think is a really cool thing.

AlanaThere are so many more designers I could introduce to you, I've barely skimmed the surface of all of them but I'll introduce to you one of the first people I've worked with at ESa and one of the smartest, Alana. Alana went to University of Tennessee-Martin she graduated in 2001 and started working at ESa in August of 2001. Alana is very very good at what she does. She works on Health care Design projects and I feel like she knows everyone at ESa and knows them very well. She also has really good questions she asks, and is wiling to tell people what she thinks about their product and what they need to do to benefit the needs of their clients. Not only is Alana smart but she does things really fast and she is wiling to help you learn. She is the first person who let me work on Revit and she explains things so clearly that I only have to be told once. All the interns have worked on different projects for Alana and she is usually the first person we go ask if they need help. She can always help us find something to do and has another project to give us. We like Alana not just because she gives us something to do but because we have all benefited from her knowledge. 

The Vanderbilt Plaza next to Loews where I work.

Well, I usually tell ya'll a funny story but I guess I'll finish off with a closing word instead. At ESa, I have learned a lot about: Photoshopping perspectives, label making, dry mounting, Revit, making finish boards, ordering fabrics, sending professional e-mails, and communicating. The amount of knowledge I have gained has been such a gift and I'm excited to move forward with that information and to get to use it on new projects that I have at UT. I have only praise to give ESa as they continue to do great things in the community of Nashville, Health care Design around the world and push forward to be a voice for humanity. Thanks for letting me be apart of it all! And also to my intern friends, Lauren and Anna I could not have made it through this internship without them, they have taught me so much and we have laughed so hard.

Week 8: That time the ceiling caved in

I know you are waiting in anticipation for me to tell you what my title means, you'll just have to wait til the end.This week the pace of things were pretty normal, compared to last week when we had to through together boards at the last minute. I finished up the specs binders for Sewanee Inn, one of the designers Jenny had me come back on Monday and scan all the pages we had put together into the computer because they wanted a digital copy as well as physical copy, so I worked on that. Then I pulled together samples for Leslie for her St. Mary's project and then later in the week she had me Photoshop some floor plans. Leslie is really good at what she does, so it was great to see where these materials I was ordering were going and just see cohesively how all the project works together, so I enjoyed that. And Anna helped me Photoshop because she is a pro, it takes her like half the time to finish a project, genius Anna at it again! Besides that a lot of this week was spent putting together boards for different projects, which I have become a pro at working the x-acto knife again. And different designers create boards in different ways so we learned how to lay them out in InDesign and print them off which was nice and makes everything really neatly laidout. We also learned how to dry mount which I didn't know was an option so that was great too! I think the highlights of the week were one of two things. First, Christie called on Tuesday and was having a problem, apparently someone sent her boards to the wrong location in Colorado, some how I was volunteered for damage control of the situation and frantically called Fedex employees to figure out what was happening. Let's just say my heart was racing because Christie needed them to transfer the boards to the correct city that day because they were presenting at 7:40 on Wednesday morning. Thankfully all was successfully taken care of, but it was unnerving that I was taking to a Fedex representative that was in a room with 100 other Fedex employees who answer the phones and look at the their computer screens to track where packages are. Lesson learned for the interns, get your friends to double check the address you put and make sure it's correct. Then Thursday night we went to Post NeoCon! I didn't know this happened and was thrilled to get to meet vendors and see the new products. That was really fun and we got lots of free stuff! Not to mention I ran into some UT grads that are working in Nashville. What a fun way to celebrate design!

This is our materials list. The designers pull it from Revit and once it's ordered and they are sending it we highlight it. It's how we keep track of all our samples.

This week we discussed how ESa present to the client their design ideas. There are multiple ways ESa goes about doing this such as: books, contracts, models, renderings (interior and exterior), 3D renderings from Revit, hand renderings (interior and exterior), finish boards, digital boards, PowerPoint and loose finishes. Depending on what phase of design the job is in will determine which way ESa presents to the client. In schematics it is usually hand renderings or 3D revit renderings,sometimes models if it is a big job and obviously power point presentations in the initial design. Then these are left there. If the company is dealing with a non-profit  they have renderings prepared and leave them to help raise money for the project, they also do this with models as well. In CD's (construct document), they take loose finishes and rendered floor plans and leave them there if the client needs to look over them or if they need a reference. In DD's contractor binders are given to them for reference now and later. As well as edited renderings along with finish boards. The client gets to keep all of these and store them incase they need to refer to them or re-order materials. ESa uses Revit, Photoshop, SketchUp, and InDesign when creating these different visuals for the client. They also have a rendering department that specifically works on hand renderings and computer aided renderings. So that's a little look at how ESa deals with that presenting to the client.

This week I want to introduce to you Haley. Haley was hired last year and interned previously with ESa before that. Haley graduated from Mississippi State University in 2011. Haley is very outgoing and very involved with ESa as well as extra curricular activities around Nashville. She is apart of Young Professionals of Nashville and is also apart of ESa's kickball team. Haley works next to Emmy and is paired off with designer Molly Alspaugh, she works mostly with health care design. Haley is one of the nicest people I have ever met and always willing to help if you need to get something done. I'm pretty sure she knows everyone that works at ESa and she gets everything done on time. She is one of those people that is apart of a million things and contributes to everything and you just wonder how she does it all. We interns also have loved Haley because she was an intern and knows how to do everything. Not to mention she let us help her with the design of a physical therapy building recently, which was very exciting.

Now to the part everyone has been anxiously awaiting. I know you probably think that by saying that time the ceiling caved in you thought I was talking about the mass amounts of work we had to do this week, but I was not. Actually, the ceiling sprung a leak. So Thursday we were sitting at our desk and then it was raining really bad outside and we heard something that sounded like water dripping. And she enough in the hall outside our cubicle we see water dripping. The architects were in a frenzy running around getting different trash cans to put under it and then we noticed that a large group was gathering by a cubicle. Sure enough another spot was leaking, but this time it was bad. This nice man named Rocky was out of town and it was his desk that it was leaking at. Now, this was probably the worst possible place this could happen because Rocky has mass amounts of Vol collectors items. So they cleared his computer off his desk and started moving stuff. While we are all standing there watching the ceiling tile caving and waiting for it to bust. Well before it busted maintaince came in and stuck a hole in the tile and let it drain into the trash can. They had to do that with two other tiles, it was a crazy day and it was also humorous because then all the architects were trying to figure out what was going wrong and how to fix it. Very exciting! 

And of course have to finish off the week with a funny little photo from our comedic relief Lauren. 

Lauren modeling our newest shipment of bubble wrap.

Week 7: Holiday Week

This was surprisingly actually busier than last week, even with it being a holiday and everything! I continued to work on the Sewanee Inn spec binders which were finalized and sent out on Wednesday! I think that stuffed about 400 plastic dividers sheets if not more! But it was amazing to see how much goes into the spec binders for hospitality design and that the Sewanee Inn is just a small hotel with around 40 rooms, I can only imagine how big of a project it would be with a Hilton! I spent Monday and Tuesday working on spec binders pretty much all day long and ordering more fabrics that had to replace the fabrics I was cutting and putting into the spec binders. Wednesday I was helping finalize everything but it was pretty much a wrap by then. So I helped the other interns prepare for two projects that had to be sent out that day. One project was for Northside Hospital, this was kind of crazy because we had been working on this project then had kind of paused on the project and then the director miscommunicated with the designer and called about us having boards ready for by Monday. The designer handled it really well and we pulled together what we had, which turned out to be everything (only because we took some samples from the contractor binders) but Anna through the boards together in two hours (seriously, she's great at what she does!) then we printed off labels, found packages and sent the boards off around 4 o'clock. Then Lauren was working on another project for Shanadoe. Lauren was photoshopping more photos for the presentation boards and I had to pack up all the samples and make a list in case they liked any of the samples and wanted to keep them. Materials got packed away and boards got put together and we sent it out at 5:30! We also had to get creative because we ran out of bubble wrap, so we resourcefully used our recycled paper. (Go green!) We had Thursday off and then the majority of the staff took Friday off too, but we did not. Lauren and I came back in on Friday and immediately began working on another set of finish boards and contractor boards. We spent the whole day putting together three finish boards and then started ordering materials for another set of boards. That pretty much sums up my holiday week!

Highlighting Floor Plan for materials

This week we talked about the client/staff relationship and what that looks like for ESa. ESa works mostly with healthcare clients and a large percent of the projects they work on our continuious rennovations to these facilities through out the years. The productivity assesments for clients and square footage ratio has been used in previous projects with ESa, though they do not use these methods everytime and on every project. When designers work with clients they go through many formal and informal meetings to better understand what they want from their project and decisions are made during each of these visits. Not to mention lots of e-mails and phone conversations with their clients. I know a lot of the designers will pull things such as different paints and have them sent off to their client to okay to help them move in a different direction. Obviously in design the client/staff relationship is incredibly important to the company and they do their best to fix all issues that come about on the job and after the job, especially since they always want the client to be able to call if they need more work to be done. A way they effectively do this is the way they pair different designers and architects together as a team. In most case their is one designer that has been their for more years and a new designer that are paired together to work on the designs, the same thing goes with architects. Not every project is like this, but in doing this it enables the newer designers and architects to learn the ways around meetings and working with clients.

This week I wanted to introduce you to Sarah Woodard. Sarah is a hospitality designer for ESa and she is one of the designer I worked with on the Sewanee Inn project. Sarah is a wonderful part of the ESa team, particularly in luncheons and informals because she always has questions for the products being shown and she isn't afraid to give her opinion. Before Sarah worked at ESa she was a bartender, which works very well in getting along with clients. Sarah went back to Watkins School of Design after over 10 years of bar tending. Sarah has one daughter and spend her spare taking her on really exciting trips. She left town on Wednesday to take her to California, where they are renting a car and driving up the coast! I love working with Sarah because she is always willing to give you the wisdom she has learned and talk about what she does on her projects, she has a very specific way of doing things and excels at it. 

For the humorous things happening at ESa this week I'll have to tell you a little story.

Harry Potter Wand

On Friday Lauren and I were finishing up some finish boards and Harold (office mail delivery specialist) came to drop off some samples and boxes that had arrived. Harold does this every day, at least twice a day if not four times a day. We also get the packages that are not specifically addressed to anyone so we can send out an e-mail and search for the designer it belongs to. Well, Lauren was going through the packages and we got on that was in a skinny really fancy box and we were both really curious because it was unaddressed and we'd never seen a sample in this kind of a box. To make it fun, Lauren said we should each guess what was in the box. Lauren guessed chocolate and I guessed a wand (side note: I love Harry Potter). Lauren opened it up and to our DISBELIEF it was in fact a wand! I was in shock because it was a guess and I wasn't trying to pull a prank on anyone. We were both dying laughing and also seriously confused. Lauren continued to open the box and it said Ron Weasley's wand. We were laughing so hard, Leslie came to see what was so funny. She laughed and said it must be a gift someone ordered for their child in the office. I'll never forget the day we got a wand in the mail! 

Week 6: Tackling Obstacles

This week has been a slow one but an exciting one because I am now working on Revit! I spent the beginning of this week watching Revit tutorials and learning the ins and outs in the program. I was able to spend time doing this because a lot of designers were out of town to present for current jobs they are working on and some were just out on vacation. Revit has been very exciting because I am conquering the obstacles of the program and have been able to see little by little that it is actually easy to use. I'm very grateful to get to use Revit as I feel it is a very important program to use in this industry and is only become more important as time passes by. I really enjoy researching so getting to do that has been really exciting, and I've done some sketches of ideas which I frequently love to do so that has been nice as well. Anna is particularly obsessed with materials so she got to pick out vinyls, cryptons, carpet, and LVT which is her niche and it's fun to work together on a project. 

All of our sample options

This week's questions were based around the FF&E of the company. ESa is kept up-to-date on FF&E through representations and lunches. ESa used to just have reps drop in and they'd spend time introducing themselves to all the designers and meeting with them individually, well as ESa grew and the time they had to spend on projects was incredibly valuable they had to figure out a better system to be kept up-to-date. So there are two different ways this happens, we have informals and luncheons. At the informals, a rep comes up sets up a presentation (usually on new products or if it's their first time who their company is) this is done in the mornings and the afternoons. One designer signs up to host the informal and they go around and announce to all the other designers the company that has come to present. That way if a designer is busy at work and can't go then they don't have to, or if it's a certain company that only works with Healthcare design the hospitality designers do not have to go. This also works well, so that if a specific designer wants to meet with a rep they can set up a separate time with them to come in and go over more in depth over a product they want to use on a project. The luncheons is a more formal presentation and usually goes over the scope of all their products and what they have to offer. This is usually for bigger companies or companies that offer more than just one certain type of product. ESa is very lucky and also gets lunch brought into them at these luncheons. It has been very beneficial to get to know these reps and get to see all the different kinds of products that are out there. At the informals and luncheons reps usually have binders or samples to then file away in our library. We have a certain way things are organized in the library and ESa is known for having one of the largest libraries in Nashville. Samples are filed in certain areas that are located on a floor plan (fabrics, LVT, 3 form, stone, etc). Everyone is in charge for keeping the library as clean as possible. We interns are  in charge of filing away products from the to be filed pile and sending back samples like carpet that is to big to store in our library. The designers also will periodically go through the library and give us a list of things to recycle and make more room for new things. We keep all of our reps and their information filed in a Rolodex on the computer, that way when ordering sampling we just have to search for it and call them from their information. FF&E is a very important part of design so it is critical for ESa to be organized and on top of what they can be using to design with.

This week I want to introduce you to Emmy.

Emmy graduated from The University of Tennessee in 2011 and has now spent a year working with ESa. She also interned with ESa as a student to go on with the list of the many other designer who have done the same. Emmy also is the one who is incharge of setting up informals and luncheons, the reps have to call her and then she sets up times to have them come in. Emmy also is working on a project with the Cancer Center that she is letting us help her research new ways to design a conference room/lunch area, she said it is one of her favorite projects because the lady is so inspiring and really sees the benefit that a space catered to cancer patient can have on their recovery. Emmy is really involved with the Healthcare aspect of design and is working towards NCIDQ accreditation as well as EDAC accreditation. Emmy has been really wonderful to be around because she is so welcoming to us and always wiling to help us when we have really simple questions.

Sometimes, you cut a cupcake with an with an x acto knife. This is normal.

Week 5: Back to Work

Last week, I took a littler breather and went on vacation to Hilton Head, SC. I was glad for a breather but now I'm back in action.

This week I came back and had to pick up on some previous jobs I had been working one when I left. I'm working on one project for Sewanee Inn helping order fabrics so we can send out spec books. This week we worked on gathering everything and filing it all in the binders to send off next week. I love working on this project because it so fun to go through all the different fabrics and become aware what is needed for a hospitality project. Another project I came back to was North side Medical Center. It's a hospital, we've had to work on some floor plans in editing colors and such. I've also become fonder of Photoshop all the time, especially when Lauren and Anna teach me how to use new tools, I love learning new things to help make me more efficient! I spent the rest of the week filing samples, ordering samples, putting together new contractor boards and even working in Revit. Lauren and Anna have also been doing research on Health care facilities for one of the designers and they all week have been randomly shouting out to me new information which I found very interesting to know. Apparently, blue is a very calming color for many people and is used a lot in different health care facilities but they have found out that with age people no longer enjoy the color blue and so using that color in a senior living facility is a very bad idea. I didn't know this and sad to hear that one day I will no longer care for the color blue. ESa is always keeping us busy and teaching us lots of new things, glad to be apart of the process!

A rendering I photoshoped this week.

This week I talked with Leslie about procurement, estimating, and project costs. ESa is a company that specifies only and sends the specifications out for bidding and purchasing by an outside firm. So project fees are determined by project managers assigned to each job, sometimes it is determined by hourly or sometimes there is a set fee. Project estimation is determined by the budget of what they have for construction cost, they usually know the typical level to estimate. In the schematic design phase the design package is priced by a contractor based on finishes and plans and then they know what needs to be taken away or added to it to fit into for their estimation. A project budget is managed by the project managers or principals and they have a certain criteria to follow. They usually have repeat projects for healthcare so they've managed a budget before which makes the process a lot easier. Certain project managers, if they are really detailed, will come talk to designers on the job if they think they are spending to many hours on a certain part of the project, this rarely happens but the project managers have it all under control. It's funny that this was my topic this week because one of the designers that has been here for a year named Haley came to talk with us about pricing. She told us she was really confused when she started out and they had given Haley a list of how a project general goes and what pricing and budgeting for a project usually looks like. She hasn't given us the sheet yet, but when she does I'll be sure to share. 

I forgot to talk about accounting last time, so let me go over that as well. Typical account procedures are handled as follows. In accounts payables invoices are processed every week by e-mail or mail and checks are made everyday. If they have any questions they will talk with the PA but if not they continue on. Then they enter in time sheets for the week and billing for items. Every two weeks they run draft invoices and have them sent to the PA's to review which just means they look over the time and expenses to make sure everything is correct. Once correct, they figure out how much they want to bill, make changes and send out bills. 

Erin and I

This week I want to introduce you to Erin. Erin graduated from the University of Cincinnati and started working for ESa in August 2011. She also interned with ESa 4 times before beginning to work with them. (By 4 times, she really means twice for 2 different co-ops). She currently works on health care projects and really loves the conceptual part of designing a project. By conceptual she means how it works and how it's constructed, which Erin went on to say that most UC graduates that work at ESa are similar to her and enjoy the conceptualization the most. She's also involved in ACE which is a mentoring program for high school students that are interested in Design, Architecture, or Engineering. Which just means she works with a student during the school year on designing a project and at the end of the year the student who's project is the best can win scholarship money to go towards getting their degree in that certain field. She is also in the working towards being licensed NCIDQ and getting LEED certified. Erin's favorite project was one she began working on when she was an intern, it's the Caldwell County Hospital in Caldwell,KY. She worked under one of the designers Tom and during the DD phase he let her design floor patterns. Then when she started working she go to go on a site tour and see her designs in the actual space, which is pretty cool if you ask me! I'd like to say that as a whole the interns really enjoy Erin she is a really great teacher and always willing to help us learn new things, not to mention her sarcasm is pretty funny.

Another hysterical moment, Lauren with packaging tape stuck in her hair. No worries, we rescued her precious locks but not without a few laughs first.

That's all I have for you this week! Until the next one, enjoy!