Keeping certain considerations in mind is important when it comes to embarking on a design-build project, according to Melania Holiat, director/designer of Trade Mark Design & Build, based in Hawthorne, New Jersey. And that’s important for both designer and client, she says. Here she explains why.
Preliminary design considerations primarily deal with establishing a plan of action toward achieving the project. It means having specific ideas at the beginning of the project and not losing track of them, and being organized from beginning to end.
That can include planning and making a list of desired elements that are requested in the project. It is also always a great idea to have a worksheet to keep track of what your goals are, to be and maintain a certain level of organization, and to bring in magazines, ideas, brochures with you when you meet with the designer so you can keep in mind what you want to achieve in the project.
Working Together
It can be an overwhelming process to start a project, which is why in our company we strongly suggest that customer and designer work together to come up with a plan of action, a check sheet as to what their goals are and what their main requirements are, and how they plan to achieve their goals.
A lot of time when we meet with the clients they have a list of thing they want to achieve in that room, but not enough space is in the room to actually do it. It can be a challenge to try and incorporate all their desires into the space, which is why it is important to have that preliminary design plan of action so you can accurately capture their wants and desires into that space in the end.
Questionnaires Help
Typically on our website we have a questionnaire that we encourage our clients to fill out, that helps break up the process of the design for them. It helps focus them on what their specific needs are for the project, and what they want to get out of it. A lot of times this is a good tool, just to be able to have something concrete on paper that they can reflect on.
It is rare, however, that a client has an idea that is not feasible. There are so many ways in which you can accomplish a design, and usually we can come up with some kind of solution. Even if it is something they did not want 100%, there is always that halfway solution where we can compromise on what they wanted and meet them halfway.
Unusual Solutions
Sometimes that means coming up with an unusual solution they had not thought of before, coming up with a little give from their end and a little give from our end. It is rare that there is something that cannot work, especially when we work together with the client to come up with a solution that works well for them.
If we don’t see that something is going to fit in a way that functions with their space, it reflects poorly on us as a business, as design professionals. We would always give them our feedback, even if it is something we feel they would not want to hear. They rely on us to do that: That is why they are hiring us.
