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Interior designers should not fear selling
Susan Mulholland Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesAs Star Wars Day just passed (May the 4th), it made me think of a comment I have heard from interior designers my entire career. When designers who have worked in a design or architectural firm decide to go into sales, they always hear the following comment from their peers: "Oh no, you are headed to the dark side." Here's my opinion on sales and why, as designers, we should not be afraid of it.
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Time to rethink the office design paradigm?
Michael J. Berens Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesToday's office spaces are a far cry from the colorless, regimented fluorescent-lit boxes of old. Thanks to years of research on the impact of office design on workers, office spaces today are open, airy, well-lit, aesthetically pleasing, healthier and safer, offering a variety of flexible and adaptable work and social environments.
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What does good restaurant design look like?
Leslie LaskinReese Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesPeople eat out for two reasons: the food and the experience. Sometimes one takes precedence over the other, but for a restaurant to truly succeed, both must be deliberately addressed. Last month, I traveled with my daughter for a couple of weeks. We ate out ... a lot. By chance, we ate in three restaurants all owned by the same restaurant group. When we sat down in the third restaurant, I told her I thought all three were owned by the same people, or at least designed by the same group.
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A values-based business model for interior design firms
Lloyd Princeton Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesOver my many years of business consulting, I have come to appreciate that the best interior design practices are values-based businesses. Please note that I wrote values with an "s," not value-based. I am not talking about how you price your services to make clients feel that you are providing them with good value. I am talking about fundamental values of good business.
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The root causes of poor communication on project teams
Sue Dyer Construction & Building MaterialsFor the past 10 years, I've asked project teams this question: "From your experience what it is that makes one project succeed and another fail?" Over 95 percent of team members said good communication was the reason for their success and poor communication was the reason for their failures. Clearly, communication appears to be the key to team success.
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Design for aging in place goes mainstream
Michael J. Berens Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesFor well over a decade, professional associations related to the building industry have been advising their members to prepare for the coming "silver tsunami" that is the aging of the baby boomer generation. With the vast majority expecting to "age in place" in their current or "retirement" home, the day would come when they would need to update, upgrade and renovate their homes to make them more age-friendly. That day, it seems, has arrived.
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Elder tech: The next level in age‑friendly housing
Michael J. Berens Construction & Building MaterialsBuilders have come a long way from the days when putting in a ramp, some grab bars and maybe a wheel-chair accessible bathroom was regarded as design for aging. As the nation's older population has expanded, builders have adopted accessibility and visitability standards and universal design principles into their properties — both single-family and multifamily.
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Hiring practices for today’s fast-paced A&D job market
Lloyd Princeton Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesHiring in the architecture and design industry has surged again. My firm has been inundated in the past month with requests from employers who are struggling to find the right candidates. Their dilemma is part of a larger pattern as the economy approaches full employment level.
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Pace of interior design employment slows
Michael J. Berens Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesFollowing an unprecedented spike in new hires in 2015, the pace of interior design employment returned to a more normal annual growth rate in 2016, at just under 4 percent. Although well below the nearly 12 percent jump from the year before, the addition of 2,110 new jobs ranks as the second-best year for designers since the onset of the last recession, when employers cut positions drastically. The rate of growth was similar to that of U.S. employment overall, which fell to 4.7 percent in December.
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HGTV helps inspire millennial home design
Katina Hernandez Interior Design, Furnishings & FixturesToday's first-time homebuyers are looking for more than just a roof over their heads. When it comes to design, they want luxury at a fraction of the price. The list of wants from today's buyers can be overwhelming for real estate agents, who are challenged to match lofty expectations with their clients' often not-so-lofty budget. Although some homebuyers are open to renovation, their design goals remain the similar across the board.
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