Today we are hosting our very first Client Appreciation Event in the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. There will be origami and live music! Come say hi if you're planning a visit today.
The only member of our current team missing from the event today is architect LauraLee Diallo. However, James Knight, Kalyn Kight, Meg Riley and I will all be on hand to meet with our clients and express our gratitude for partnering with Reynard Architectural Designs for their home design projects.
We launched Reynard Architectural Designs as a custom residential architectural design firm in 2021. It took us a while ( and a lot of failure and lessons learned) to really ramp up and get where we are today.
It doesn't seem like that long ago we won our very first job. Back then we were still not quite sure what we were doing or how we were going to do it.
I took some time earlier this week to visit that job in West Atlanta and snap some pictures of the finished home.
Seeing a home built is so satisfying because it's a physical testament to the work that so many individuals contributed to a common cause.
As we use this weekend to look back on our first full year of work and what's transpired in the time between when Reynard Architectural Designs was a concept to where it is today, here are some lessons and observations I've gathered.
Passion. It is not "natural". Developing a passion takes a lot of patience, focus, disappointment, self awareness/reflection and determination. It's not just some feeling that wells up inside (although passion often excites our emotions as well).
Failure. Look for the lesson when things go wrong. When failure occurs you can let it defeat you or you can let it inform you. We've certainly made mistakes at Reynard but I love it when our team gathers around our mistakes to look for the door of possibility in light of each situation. Rather than blaming or complaining, we look for ways to improve our process and communication.
Designing WITH our clients rather than FOR them is a key distinction we want in our firm. We set out to make designing a new home an immersive collaborative experience rather than a transactional one.
There are so many more lessons than these and so many frustrations and challenges along the way but these are some of the first "hot takes" that come to mind when I reflect on our first full year as a design team.
There are many more memories to made, challenges to be met, and homes to design and I can't wait to see what's in store for us next!
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