Parkhill, Smith and Cooper

                Parkhill, Smith and Cooper is a design firm in Lubbock, Texas that was established in 1945. This firm is most significant for not only being LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certified but also for creating the first LEED building! PSC is also known for being in the Top 500 Design Firms in the United States. Parkhill, Smith and Cooper provides a range of services as well, such as interior design, architectural, landscape and engineering work.
                John Bard was the employee who showed the class around the building. He first graduated college as an Architect student, but later went back to school. The second trip to college led him to graduate with a degree in Interior Design.
                The Parkhill, Smith and Cooper firm is designed entirely out of sustainable materials. The layout of the building allows each office to be on the outside which uses a lot of natural light. This helps keep the cost of electricity down across the building. There is also a sock ventilation system that collapses at night when no one remains in the building. In the conference room, PSC used an innovative idea! Dry erase paint was used to cover the walls. It seems to be a great way to express ideas in a fast way for each person to see or would be a more exciting way of giving presentations. Also, if a customer changed their mind in a meeting, it would be an easy way for that person or the designer to draw out a different idea quickly! In the PSC building, there were also acoustical tiles that were made from recycled paper throughout the building.
                Parkhill, Smith and Cooper have succeeded in working with sustainable material and design with proof of their own building! This company has shows creativeness and an exciting and function way. It’s important to keep the environment safe while still looking beautiful and will always catch everyone’s eye!

Jeff Seal Homes of Distinction

Jeff Seal Homes of Distinction team commits themselves to each project they take on and see the project throughout each stage. Jeff Seal and his team designs many homes throughout the city of Lubbock and takes Interior Design classes on a tour through some of the homes. The first house on the tour was a French designed name by Abby Carter. Abby is currently working for Jeff Seal and graduated the Interior Design program at Texas Tech University. Abby and Emily, a senior in the Interior Design program, are huge inspirations to every student in the program. They each went through the program and have had wonderful experiences through Jeff Seal.

The French design home was still under construction when the class visited. Jeff told everyone how the house designed for the customer was custom made. Each piece of furniture that was placed in the house had been drawn out on CAD and made by a carpenter that the company uses. Abby had drawn out the layout for the house, the furniture in CAD and the landscape in the front and backyard. In each house Jeff Seal designs, he creates something that has never been seen before. When designing something different each time, it is important to pay close attention to the architecture and capture each style of the design. The style of the house should be carried through in each room and even outside, Jeff believes. The company strives for close attention to the details and capturing the style of the customer and going above and beyond for every project.

The first house’s design is Mediterranean French style. The house used gothic arches, barrel vaults and groin vaults that all the students recently learned in History of World Architecture. It was interesting to see actual learning material being used in the home. One the first story of the home there was the dining room, living room, kitchen, guest and master bedroom. Every piece of cabinetry in the kitchen was custom made and drawn out by Abby, who designed the home for Jeff Seal. The master bathroom was one of the most interesting rooms in the house because of the heated tile flooring. Upstairs were two guest bedrooms, a media room and a storage closet. The entire class had a huge laugh about the giant storage closet that went on forever! The entire house was made from natural stone and had real hard wood flooring.

The second house that was on the tour was still in the framing stage. It was interesting to see the difference in the two houses and the stages they went through. This house was a larger project than the previous one. It was for a family with two children with one of the parents living with them. They also had a prayer room off the foyer that was something that many students had not seen before in a home. In the house, they had a master bedroom, a bedroom for the parents living with them, a guest bedroom and the two boy’s rooms upstairs. Since the home is so large, they decided to have two kitchens, one downstairs and one upstairs, and three utility rooms, one of each end of the house and one upstairs as well!

The entire tour was very informing and inspiring. Learning the experiences of Abby and Emily’s work at Jeff Seal excited everyone in the group. Also seeing the homes in different stages of construction was a sight to see! Everyone also left with one of the most important pieces of advice from Jeff Seal, “it’s all in the details”!

Collins Tile

Over the past twenty seven years, Collins Tile has been contracted all over the West Texas area. They have done mostly commercial work, but have done residential and Texas Tech University buildings as well. The owner was also very proud to announce the opening of his new store in Midland next month. Collins Tile has been very successful for many years and still continues to be a prospering company.

The tour began by a discussion of the tile business and how easy it is to begin but the economy has a large impact. Between 2002 and 2007, the tile business was very successful, but over the years tile companies have slowed down and many companies go into bankruptcy. One of the better times that Collins Tile has was a project of a bank in Midland that was a million dollar project. Another project that Collins Tile had done was the University Medical Center in Lubbock.

On the countertop in the main showroom there were many different samples of the types of flooring sold. The lecture began by going over the different types of natural stones. Granite is one of the most popular natural stones. This stone shows a lot of movement in each of the slab and is usually sold for $10 to $11 a square foot while some of the more expensive Granite costs around $35 a square foot. Marble is another commonly used natural stone that also has movement called veins. Quartz is another natural stone that is not as popular as the others but is very expensive costing around $20 a square foot. The average residential project that uses these types of materials cost between $6,500 to $7,000. When the owner was discussing the types of stones being sold, he informed everyone that you must pay special attention to the location the stone is being place, like the kitchen versus the bathroom. Special attention is required when placing stone in these areas.

The two other tiles that were talking about during the trip were coriander and natural slate. Coriander is better used for medical applications and comes in a range of colors. It is impervious and cannot hold bacteria which is a good material to be used in a sterile environment. Natural slate has been put together to create a laminate so that is can be placed on curves.

Outside of the main building is where the entire inventory is placed. This is important because it allows the customer to get the full picture of what their selection would look like. Although allowing the stone to sit outside will cause it to crack and yellow, which means they must hurry to finish their new showroom! When buying slabs, you must buy in a bundle which comes in six pieces. Typical projects are around two to three slabs. Mr. Collins also talked about real world experiences which are always interesting to hear as well as different fees and services. He also shared what to avoid and expect in the future.

Lastly, everyone learned about the different machines used to cut and style the stone. One of the cutting machines used at Collins Tile is from Italy and was obtained by the company in 1998. Both is cutting machine and the CNC machine, which cuts circles and makes curves, are computer programmed and very expensive!

At the end of the tour, Mr. Collins gave a very inspiration speech and wished us the best of luck for the future.

Leftwich Chapman Flooring America

One field trip my class went on was to Leftwich Chapman’s Flooring America. This local Lubbock store selling everything from hardwood floors, carpet to tiles. Majority of the business of Flooring America is commercial work, although they have worked with residential areas.

Over seventy percent of their sales is hardwood floor and then the second top selling is carpet. The store is also divided into these three sections. The first section of the tour, we stood in the hardwood floor section and he told us about the different types of flooring he has, the cost and which ones are the most popular. He also told the group about the different prices ranges of the wood flooring. One of the most interesting floorings is the cork and leather floors. We were told a story about one of the uses of leather flooring. A customer that had come in enjoyed hunting in his spare time and had a room where he kept many of the heads of animals he had shot. The leather floor had working perfectly in this room where he could display his kills. The cork flooring was also very interesting. When you think of cork, the first thing that comes to mind is a bulletin board, and he had pointed out. With the way the cork had been treating and made, it was a strong and durable material that differed from cork used in a bulletin board. This made the flooring tough and able to be using in flooring.

In the carpet section, we mostly focused on the feel of the carpets instead of learning more about them. Many of the carpets were very soft and several of the students commented on how they could easily fall asleep on them, even standing up! We flipped through many of the samples of carpet to see which one was softer. He also shared a story about one of the more expensive carpets that is also resistant to bleach. He did warn us to not spill bleach on the carpet just because it has resistance!

When we got to the tile side of the store, everyone was fascinated by the different types of tile that was everywhere. Many of the natural stones tiles had caught my eye. The glass pieces were also a beautiful sight. He explained how they used many of the tiles for countertops and backsplashes in residential areas.

Another thing the class was shown was laminate wood and tile flooring. It looked so realistic! He explained how similar they looked to the real thing and talked about how much easier the care would be to have the laminate flooring instead of the real thing. Right outside the door for the laminate showroom was the more expensive carpets. I believe that was the class’ favorite part of the tour. Everyone looked through all the different types of patterns and materials that were used. Each student had found a new favorite piece of carpet that day!

Leftwich Chapman’s Flooring America was a very exciting field trip. Each student got to learn something new about hardwood flooring as well as good locations for it to be used. Also, everyone found the softest carpet that want to put in their house when they get older. Overall we learned a few things, but mostly got excited about the texture and beauty throughout the store.