Opportunities for Building Designers Part 8 of 20
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We have presented five opportunities for building designers before the design stage.
The next few opportunities are devoted to three possibilities for building designers during the design stage, beginning with the most obvious and yet probably the most underutilized, total design.
A surprising number of building designer, engineers, architects, and residential designers have at one time or another been guilty of “shorting” a job.
That is to say, they have turned out the bare minimum of drawings and specifications needed to get the building permit.
The result, many other critical decisions are then left to be made by the owner or the builder during construction.
If the owner or the builder were qualified by training and experience to render all of the decisions properly, the effect of this shorting would not be so tragic.
But in nearly every case, the most qualified person is the one who had the original design commission.
Was it you?
An example of Total Design
Let’s look at the opposite extreme for a moment.
A condition where the designer commits to paper in advance every single detail and specification of the project beginning to end.
She not only helps select the site and creates the design for the building, but helps establish an operational image and follows through with color selection, the design of accessories, provide hardscape design, renderings, and might even get involved in the design of marketing materials.
Operational image (or corporate image) is becoming very important in the business world, Apple an excellent example.
Apple has forever changed our understanding of retail architecture and design.
Apple began selling its products through specially designed Apple stores back in the early 2000s. These minimalist, carefully crafted environments are made to recall the positive and rigorously designed nature of the products themselves.
The concept of total design opens large doors for every building designer.
To be able to offer professional services capable of creating a new operational image, of being able to see that creation through from concept to actual operation, and to polish those capabilities by improving the design in chain operation, there lies a career demanding the best only designer has to offer.
Are you interested?