An Opportunity for Design

To begin the story of my last two weeks requires some context for all the non-architect folks. In the process of creating a building you usually have a brief period of design and planning, followed by the putting together the construction documents, followed by bidding and construction. I really enjoy and excel at the design part, but due to several factors (being in a large firm, being on an aviation team which doesn’t have very many design opportunities, and having just completed college and thus being inexperienced) I have yet to design anything. Most of my work is on boring stuff like reflected ceiling plans.

As of late I have got to do some planning out at DFW. Though it isn’t really design, it was still pretty fun. That work had recently stopped so I was slated to go back to drawing expansion joints but was randomly asked to help out with a design team that was having trouble. Turns out that a large section of our aviation team was working on generating three schemes to a large client to completely redesign and rebuild their airport. (can’t reveal the client on the internet, top secret…) Needless to say I was pretty thrilled about the opportunity so I start sketching like a mad man, of which impressed our head designer and got my design as one of the three schemes to be presented this morning.

I am not boasting in my own merit, God has giving me the ability and the love of design as well as this opportunity. It has been refreshing to both Laura and I to see the quickness of this opportunity, as we weren’t expecting me to really enjoy my job until we moved to another place and firm. Hopefully I will get more opportunities now that some of my bosses have seen my potential. So here are some of my sketches (which won’t make a lot of sense given that I can’t really give you the context for them):