Take a look at the new construction taking place on college campuses around the country. You'll see a combination of great design, engineering ingenuity, and environmentally sustainable practices.

 

For example, check out Kroon Hall at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (across the street from Eero Saarinen's hockey rink), Cornell University's new Life Sciences building (Weill Hall), the Rice University Childrens' Campus, and Oberlin College's Adam Joseph Lewis Center for examples of excellence in green architecture.

 

For example, all of the materials used and grown within Oberlin's Adam Joseph Lewis Center are recycled, reused, or sustainably grown and harvested. And the air conditioning, heating, and lighting are passive and energy efficient in as far as it is possible.

 

The center's interior and exterior landscaping incorporates a mixture of native northern Ohio ecosystems that provide responsible storm water management and capture/storage in addition to the food that's produced.

 

Oberlin proudly promotes the center's "Living Machine" which it describes as an "ecologically engineered system that combines elements of conventional wastewater technology with the purification processes of wetland ecosystems to treat and recycle the building's wastewater". Water that has been cleaned by the Living Machine is ultimately reused in the building's toilets and for landscape irrigation.

 

Success will surely be measured in the long term, but the beauty and innovation of these buildings is extremely exciting.

 

U.S. News and World Report Magazine has released its list of best fine arts and performing arts colleges for 2010.

 

Many of the familiar architecture and design names are in the 2010 list, including the Boston Architectural College, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the Pratt Institute, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the California Institute of the Arts.

 

Perhaps you're considering a career in interior design? A good way to start is to research accredited interior design schools using the highly reliable Council for Interior Design Accreditation pages. Formerly known as FIDER (Foundation for Interior Design Education Research), the council is the gold standard for the evaluation of interior design educational programs. For 35 years, this non-profit organization has promoted quality standards for interior design educational programs. Once accredited, programs must continue to meet/exceed and uphold standards in order to maintain accreditation.

 

The entire site http://www.accredit-id.org/ is very user friendly, providing information for prospective students, parents, educators and interior design professionals.

 

Another reliable and informative resource is the College Board http://www.collegeboard.com, where you can search majors. For example, you can search "interior design" or "interior architecture" in order to see a brief description of the major/career, and then search listings of schools that offer such majors. A very handy tool!

 

Over the years, I've developed a great appreciation for designers in specialized areas - for example kitchen and bath designers, and lighting designers. Their expertise in their respective fields adds a great deal to the end results and overall success of a project, and should be recognized as a valuable asset when putting together project details. Rather than trying to "do it all" on a project, interior and architectural designers can benefit by bringing in a consultant who can provide design solutions for different aspects of a project.

 

I've highly enjoyed working with these specialized designers. For example, when working on a kitchen design project, I generally do the 'prep work' with clients to arrive at the overall look, including cabinet style and finish, countertop material selection, pendant or accent lighting selections and the like, and I then turn to the specialists to design exact layouts and dimensions. Tools such as 2020 Cabinet software and others facilitate the kitchen/bath designer's work and allow quick studies of variations in designs and dimensions (for example doors vs. drawers, cabinet interior features, and more).

 

With regard to lighting design, although designers usually receive a fair amount of education, and can stay current on innovations and trends, I've found it useful and valuable to consult with lighting designers who generally know products inside-out, who can evaluate spaces for most effective lighting, and who provide that extra level of expertise to assure that a projects' end result will be completely satisfactory for clients.

 

Once, as a fledgling designer, I was involved in a project that included a large amount of valuable original art in a gallery area of a client's home. The client requested that the design firm that I worked for bring in a lighting consultant to properly light the art. The head designer in my firm insisted that he was capable of specifying and implementing the right type of lighting, and that a lighting designer wasn't necessary. The client went along with the designer in good faith, but the end results when the art went up were less than spectacular and the client was very unhappy. It was an expensive learning experience for all involved, as lighting was removed and replaced, and ceilings and faux painted walls had to be repaired and refinished. Ultimately, it was the client's decision not to call in a lighting specialist, but the designer played a large part in that decision.

 

While it's important for designers to research and learn as much as possible about specialized areas of design in order to keep current with the latest technologies and trends and to be able to converse in an informed manner with clients and specialists, designers can often gain a great deal by collaborating with qualified experts.