I had interned with Kristen Brooksby this Summer for my internship class I took with Terri so I thought continuing an internship with Kristen will help me achieve my capstone as well as expose myself to new areas of design. My initial intentions for this capstone was construction based being that Kristen only had time to work on the Bloomington Country Club remodel because it was/is such a big project. Throughout this experience expectations were meet in other ways rather then through my initial learning objectives. Therefore, my learning objectives were reconstructed to fit what I had accomplished and how I incorporated communication theories to the experienced communication issues.
Learning Objectives
- Rebecca will be able to properly measure window fixtures and record specialty orders for installations of Hunter Douglas products.
- Rebecca will be able to identify the steps of an installation process with Hunter Douglas products.
- Rebecca will be able to identify the basic steps of a demolition process.
- Connect with an Interior Designer in Salt Lake City so Rebecca is able to continue a position in the interior design career field.
- Apply a communication theory to the outcome of the capstone as a whole.
PLO’s
- I hope to use my learning objectives as a guide of what I should focus on next in the interior design career field. Through my experience I want to become more knowledgeable with interior design tools for future employers while using interpersonal communication and communication accommodation to my advantage.
- I know my audience will vary so by using my communication resources and understanding that there is much flexibility when speaking to clients who are older in age or younger in age, coworkers who are at the same level of success there must be flexibility in communication.
- Its important that I apply the many skills taught throughout the course of my upper division classes when working with small groups and the public. It is also important that as someone who will not only represent there self, but a company as well that I ethically give credit when it’s due and respect the face of others and their hard work.
- This project is self-motivated and required documentation of what has been accomplished. I will provide pictures of the tasks that I have been apart of and pictures of documents that I have completed.
Execution
Bloomington Country Club Demolition
As a designer it’s important to know the basic steps of a demolition and it’s the designers job to supervise the work site for safety and that the projects vision is being completed right, but typically you hire a contracting team to professional be apart of this process. There are many areas of a demolition process starting with the building, related services, demolition knowledge, planning issues, and planning activities.
First you must determine the type of demolition that will be done to the building ranging from mechanical (the use of mechanized equipment), implosion (the use of explosives) and in this case where are doing a special demolition (the use of handheld tools to break down small areas, remove concrete to install new figures). Second, as apart of building knowledge and other services, the designer must understand the type of materials the project will be dismantling, salvaging, recycling and any hazardous materials that might be handled. Third, designers must consider the demolition planning issues that are involved. The demolition planning ranges from the type of construction, safety issue, cost, site access, unforeseen conditions, protecting the adjacent structure, material recycling and the environmental. Lastly, demolition-planning activities include investigating a sites condition and enforcing local regulations must be accounted for as in permits for the site, disposal of material, and recycling.
As a contributing part to the demolition of the Bloomington Country Club I learned first hand that with an older preexisting building no one knows what to expect until that step is reached; for example, pluming. Kristen nor did anyone else know that the country club had water damage in the walls, pipes were old and not useful until we were at that step of the demolition. With these unexpected problems a designer and clients budget can vary. Not only do unexpected problems arise and then in turn can push the grand opening date back but its important that as a designer you must be knowledgeable of the entire building structure. When ripping off walls and hammering through beams its important that as the supervisor that the demolition team is aware of what to not demo.
Here are a few pictures of what I contributed to the demolition:
Before
After
Photos above show that John and I were able to remove the mirror and counter top. We were also able to remove the men's bathroom stalls and doors to the men's shower.
Before
After
Photos above show that John and I were able to take off the bathroom stales, remove the mirror and counter tops next to the bathroom stales and remove a wall that separated the entrance of the women's locker room and powder room. Removal of the wall is apart of the new design.
Hunter Douglas with Sun River St. George, UT
John Larson is his own employer who’s trained in installing Hunter Douglas’s products. As apart of Sun Rivers Design Center they include Hunter Douglas window fixtures as a product option when residence are in the process of designing there home. Sun River then contacts John Larson to do the installation process. Kristen teamed me up with John so I was able to accomplish my course hours but so I could also learn the installment process of window fixtures and the correlation between two companies working with each other to produce a product.
The Sun River Design Center provides John with paperwork of each installment and information regarding the house location, deadline, location of shutter/blind placement within the home, the style and type of shutter/blind request by resident. With his paperwork filed months in advance Sun River has a storage unit where all of their shutters are delivered and stored that correlates to the filed paper work. But before John receives the final installation paperwork the measurements of each window that the homeowner choose to install a window fixture must be measured and documented so Hunter Douglas can customize to each window treatment (there is paper prior to the measurements so John knows each window to measure).
Paper work is then submitted through Sun River to Hunter Douglas. With the final paper work in hand you can find the ordered shutters at the ware house by the labeled house number. Then with the order gathered it is transported to the install. Each shutter/blind is labeled by room and window; this helps the installer know which shutter/blind needs to be installed into each window. After each shutter/blind is placed in front of the window that correlates to the tag they’re ready to be installed. John did all installment I helped with placing, loading and unloading product, opening product and placing each window fixture in the proper location of the home.
On the bottom right side of the photo the circle and triangle indicate what type of fixture will be installed into each window based on residents preference. On the floor plan Circles indicate shutters and Triangles indicate powered blinds.
Analysis
Communication Accommodation Theory
As a result of my capstone being very human orientated and socially motivated I thought the Communication Accommodation Theory, based on the research of Howard Giles, best fits my experience. Communication Accommodation Theory suggested that people will accommodate or adjust their style of speaking to what fits best to the initial interaction. At this level of accommodation people are influenced to a degree that reflects self identify with social identity and group belonging, with my project I’m not referring to this theory to that extent but that through this experience communication varied in degrees of appropriateness and norms that then guided the accommodation process. I found myself physically and verbally changing my speech to what I thought was appropriate and expected out of people working in the interior design field. Not only is there a general form of communication with your colleges but that it changes when speaking to clients as well as vendors.
As a result of my capstone being very human orientated and socially motivated I thought the Communication Accommodation Theory, based on the research of Howard Giles, best fits my experience. Communication Accommodation Theory suggested that people will accommodate or adjust their style of speaking to what fits best to the initial interaction. At this level of accommodation people are influenced to a degree that reflects self identify with social identity and group belonging, with my project I’m not referring to this theory to that extent but that through this experience communication varied in degrees of appropriateness and norms that then guided the accommodation process. I found myself physically and verbally changing my speech to what I thought was appropriate and expected out of people working in the interior design field. Not only is there a general form of communication with your colleges but that it changes when speaking to clients as well as vendors.
Interpersonal Communication
One of the drawbacks to my internship was the lack of interpersonal communication between Kristen and I. There were other contributing factors to why I didn’t accomplish my initial learning objectives ranging from schedules not working out too Kristen simply being busy. Interpersonal communication requires face-to-face interaction and although she would go out of her way to help me with this project our schedules made it hard to be with each other in order for that communication to happen and get into detailed explanation regarding how to communicate with vendors or how to professional and persuasively speak to clients interested in your talent and abilities.
Self-Evaluation
Overall I thought this internship went well. Being that I had established myself with Kristen Brooksby Interior Design I thought things would go a lot smoother with creating new learning objectives and achieving them. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I thought would be easy to achieve but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn useful tools.
There were three learning objectives that I was not able to achieve 1) creating a sample budget for a project based on the clients available dollar amount, 2) be able to calculate material from vendors to base a projects budget and 3) connect with an interior designer in Salt Lake City. I’m dissatisfied that I wasn’t able to learn how to do these tasks because they would have been very helpful to my experience and knowledge but I understand that our availability didn’t fit with each others. As for my third learning objectives I wanted to wait as long as possible to post if I had connected with anyone in Salt Lake City, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find an interior design job through Kristen Brooksby.
With that being said I do wish that I looked into other interior designers to see if we could have worked out a better schedule but I also wish that I looked into interning with Susan Jarvis. Susan works for ERA Real Estate and she was more then willing to help me find an internship at her office for this project. Not only do I enjoy interior design, but also my interest in Real Estate has grown over the past 2 years. I would have enjoyed learning Real Estate ranging from an office environment, being responsible to market yourself and how to approach clients.
