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In the last few weeks, I have seen that residential design mostly consists of collaboration. As a designer, learning to collaborate with different people is an important skill. Wokring with clients to get an idea of what they want and what they like style wise or budget wise, is one type of collaboration. Then hiring contractors and communicating with munufacturors to acheive the design intention and keeping communicating what supplies and materials are needed to the office manager that is in charge of ordering. There is so much that goes into implimenting the deisgn.
EMB Interiors is a fairly small firm. For the most Part Ellen does most of the design work and figures out who to hire for what jobs. Jessica assists her by helping her pull materials, keeping notes of everyhthing the clients says they like (they tend to change their minds frequently), and and helping her communicate with subs. Lauren works in the office ordering materials needed and making sure deliverys are made to job sites and the contractors or builders for the job know know what materials are in so they cans tart on jobs.
Collaboration with clients is very complex. Some clients are very easy to work with but most are very particular. They dont know exactly what they want or they change their minds. Taking notes during meetings can bevery important for this reason. Some clients are easy and have an idea of what they want and others you need to show them different idea in order to get an idea of what they like and dont like. Sometimes they dont even know what materials are avalible to them. One of the clients we are currently working with, they dont have the largets budget but the husband wants real stone floors and marble counters everywhere including the laundry! She doesn't want to keep up with the maintence and cleaning because they have children. To help them find a middle ground, we have showed them many alternative flooring and counter options like porcelian tiles and quartz counter tops to use in areas that may not be used often and put stones is areas like the master and the kitchen.
It also is important with builders and sub contrcators. Just the other day at a job site we worked with electritians to hang light fixtures. We collaborated with him to decide what mounting height was needed for the chandeliers and sconces. We also colborated with cabnitet installers to mark where the cabinet hardware would be put on. Me and Jessica went around to each room and placed the correct knobs and pulls in each cabinet or drawer and marked where they should be put on the drawer. seeing a finished product and workign out the final details of a project like this are skills that can definetly not be taught in a classroom. The real world of being an interior designer is completly different then being in school. Collaborating skills like this can only be perfected through experience.