Going into the interior design field, I knew that my ultimate goal was always to get to architecture eventually. I feel like I started with interior design because I feel like it translated more closely to the 2D art I was focusing on. It’s a lot of colors, it’s a lot of textures and so that kind of created a more seamless transition. The line between interior design and architecture is not necessarily a line it’s, it’s kind of a haze, I guess, because I feel like they’re truly one in the same, you’re just focusing on different parts of the building. And so I feel that in a lot of my projects, the inside is really influenced by the outside. Of course, we do take it to account the site plans and sun studies and things like that, but I find that the inside of the spaces where people are spending the majority of their time are what’s really influencing the shape and the construction of the building.

While engaging for projects, a lot of my work is to facilitate a conversation between TDA and the clients. We’ll work through a space planning, we’ll work through the communication between the inside and the outside of the building, so making sure color palettes work together. They tell me words like “beautiful” or “large” or “open.” I’ll take notes about that, take notes about their needs and their wants, kind of bring that back and TDA as a team, we’ll discuss what best fits that need or that want. My favorite part of the design process is the documentation phase, because I’m a very detail oriented person. So in architecture, the detailed phase of design begins at a DD or Design Development and moves into Construction Documents, where we actually start to really focus on pulling together details that create a building.

TDA does a really great job at providing clients with the team members that best fit the project. It’s not like PM’s are competing for a project as maybe you would in a typical large scale firm. The partners, focus on the project and they look at the clients, who most of the time we’ve worked with them pre-bond or we’ve worked with on previous projects and they kind of look at us then and they say, okay, you would be a really great fit for this project or for this team. It kind of helps to allow us to build these really great relationships with the clients because you’re kind of in one way or another, going to end up tied to this client, it’s going to hopefully be a relationship that continues on even after the project is completed.

So I really enjoy working in the K to 12 education market because I feel it is very “selfless” design. I feel like you’re always putting in your heart and your soul into a building that you will never be able to experience. And you will never know the impact that that building has on its inhabitants until those generations are growing up and going through life just as you are.