San Francisco, USA
Senior interior designer
at AvroKO
AvroKO is hiring a senior interior designer to join its team in San Francisco, USA.
About the role
The senior designer acts as AvroKO’s lead designer responsible for the whole design of a project through overseeing the definition and delivery of the design from conceptualization, through development, coordination, documentation and execution in the field. This is a project specific role.
The senior designer’s core responsibilities are
Design:
- leading the AvroKO team in conceiving of the project design to meet the clients program, quality objectives, project constraints as well as AvroKO’s brand of design
- liaison between the principal in charge and the design team during the design process
- organize and run regular in house design sessions presenting to the P.I.C and with the team
- work as part of the team sketching design solutions, preparing drawings, editing presentations, sourcing materials, finishes FF&E, producing work drawings, specifications etc.
Development:
- responsible for the development of the whole design of the project according to the design intent
- reviewing all documents to ensure they incorporate the design intent
Coordination
- represent AvroKO and the design for all consultant coordination meetings
- manage design coordination within AvroKO ie between architecture, FF&E and graphics, and between owners, consultants and AvroKO
- manage and coordinate all communications to and from consultants
- supervise, develop and mentor designers
- coordinate with the project manager in providing services per scope, budget and schedule
Documentation:
- responsible for creating and delivering presentations based on AvroKO’s deliverables standards for presentations and contract documents
- oversee the production and delivery of quality and timely sets of contract documents being drawings, specifications, budgets and reports as proscribed by the contract
Execution:
- partners with project manager to ensure conformance with architecture standards’ checklist requirements specific to each project design phase
- lead the AvroKO team in performing it’s construction administration services including:
- responding to RFI’s and interpreting the contract documents to ensure the design intent is met
- reviewing submittals, substitutions and field conditions for conformance with design intent
- attending and reporting on field visits
- conducting punch lists reviews
- resolving problems and issues that arise during construction
Leadership:
- partners with project manager to ensure conformance with architecture standards’ checklist requirements specific to each project design phase.
This is a very important function of the senior designer’s role - as a creative collaborative, all voices are welcome and should be considered in the design process
- while the SD has certain responsibilities and authorities – AvroKO is NOT hierarchical or dictatorial, and goes to great pains to encourage junior staff in order to bring out their best, and capitalize on their talents and energy
- the successful SD is able to encourage staff initiative to think for themselves and create and iterate on ideas we develop as a team, rather than prescribe or force their own vision on a project. The SD also doing the work in collaboration with the team – not just delegating tasks
Project financial monitoring and reporting:
Studio wide
- forecaster: project what we should be billing. Update at minimum once a month to reflect
- existing project schedule changes
- submit to PIC for review
- potential projects forecast
- new project starts
- billings – monitoring what we actually bill
- update percent completes at the end of month (or before client billing date)
- coordinate with accounting
- review A/R and help on collections
- be aware of invoicing
Project specific:
- project management report (PMR)
- review at minimum once a month – preferably every two weeks, especially for large projects
- adjust work plan based on Spent to Date (STD) figures
- staffing
- based on routine PMR review, and considering adjustments in project schedule or scope, mark up changes to the office schedule with requirements for staffing changes (which must be substantiated with a work plan, and additional service agreement (ASA) where necessary
Staff scheduling:
Studio Wide
- using MS project one can create and adjust
- new projects (set to automatic scheduling) with durations (in work days) and start dates
- set relationship by creating predecessors
- adjusting tasks to be subtasks
- assign staff on a percentage basis
- run reports showing
- gantt chart overall schedule by project and phase. Filter of highlight to suit for date ranges
- project allocations by person (resource) to see total work load commitment near and long term
- person allocation by project
- overall studio wide work load commitment to ensure full utilization.
- monitor staffing to identify openings in availability and report to New
- business development team, to plan for new work intake.
- reconcile staffing with forecaster to plan for when we need work for cash flow vs staff availability
Project specific:
- using Smartsheets one can create schedules and task lists (from the same sheet by changing view) in order to list the
- main phases of our services
- key tasks required during each phase (Work Breakdown Structure WBS)
- timing and sequencing of key tasks
- principle person responsible
- progress and final milestone dates, workshops and meetings.
- those managing projects should be leading
- project kick off meetings
- phase kick off meetings
- weekly team check in to review progress
Preferred qualifications
- over eight years of post-graduate design experience with significant experience in high end, bespoke hospitality design restaurants and hotels
- demonstrated conceptual approach to design
- experience leading design teams
- persuasive presentation skills
- excellent teamwork skills
- ability to work collaboratively with design directors and creative managing directors across the firm
- excellent organisational skills with a strong attention to detail
- outstanding communication skills
- proven industry experience with common industry software applications such as Adobe Creative Suite, 3D modeling applications, AutoCAD and Microsoft Office, Spexx specification writing software a plus
- experience building, nurturing and fostering client relationships
- strong writing skills (narratives, strategy, meeting minutes, proposals, etc.)
- minimum bachelor’s degree in interior design or architecture – master’s degree a plus