Danielle Kahn provided support for creation of garden designs / residential master plans for high end residential clients. 

Although high end residential may not seem terribly fascinating to many in SNRE, it is worth noting that both Chrisy and Craig are committed environmentalists and have done some restoration / ecological projects in the past.  They don't get many of these projects, but they are concerned about the impact of their designs and their company, and they have knowledge of Michigan native trees and other woody and herbacious plants. 

Danielle's responsibilities included office support, researching plant and hardscape materials; creating basemaps; sketching, rendering and labeling designs; some field visits at the beginning of projects; mailings to get new clients; putting together a PowerPoint presentation for their ecological services (they are trying to expand their work in this area); researching pricing; and some communications with clients.  Programs she used included CAD, Illustrator and Photoshop. The office also uses Sketchup.  Mostly, she learned a lot about how a small design-build landscape architecture firm operates.  Danielle had a lot of time to chat with the office manager about where they make money, where they lose money, how they track their processes, how the business operates.  In terms of design, she did learn about their design and drawing preparation process, so that was interesting, and it helped her to refine her own drawing preparation process (in some cases, this meant doing what she learned there, but in other cases this meant choosing to do it differently than how she saw things operating at the office!)  Overall, a nice bunch of people and a typically laid back and worthwhile internship.

Internship Details