The most rewarding thing about my job is working with clients. I love getting to know and understand them and their lifestyles. The challenge of being presented with a problem, and knowing that the clients trust me and my team of architects and engineers to solve it, is motivational.
I am an architectural designer on the path to becoming a licensed architect. For the past three years, I have been focusing on healthcare design; providing services to both public and private healthcare entities throughout the Midwest. I have attended a number of healthcare design conferences, and take pride in keeping up on current trends, issues and technologies that help to develop and shape this industry. The thing that is cool about designing for the healthcare field is getting to know and understand the day-to-day lives of healthcare providers, without having to lift a scalpel. I am fascinated by the medical field, but can’t handle the sight of blood.
My journey to becoming an architectural designer started with my passion for ballet. I grew up training with various companies throughout the United States: Virginia School of the Arts, Joffrey Midwest, BalletMet, and the Kansas City Ballet. It taught me obvious things such as grace, poise and discipline, but I also believe that it taught me about movements of the human body through space, which I am riveted by. I love that architecture can have a positive effect on the way people move through and utilize space. I knew that being a professional ballerina wasn’t a lifelong career, so I took my love of space and movement and turned my focus to the design and creation of the built environment. I went on to receive my Masters in Architecture from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and I never looked back. Nothing is more exciting to me than helping a client design their space and then see it become reality.
Outside of work, I love to travel, where I can admire architecture from many places. There is something exciting and insightful about experiencing different cultures and meeting new people. Whenever I have a spare minute, I am traveling somewhere: Denver, Kansas City, Des Moines, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, etc. My favorite trip, so far, was spending three weeks traveling through Italy. Of course, the architecture was breathtaking and awe-inspiring, and I could spend eternity just marveling over the exquisite details, beautiful materials and grandiose structures. However, my favorite thing of all was the piazzas where people meet, catch up, shop, eat, work, live and play. It’s where all of the action is.
Fun fact: The top three places on my travel wish list are: 1) Greece 2) Denmark 3) New York City
Click here to learn more about the Healthcare market that Kelly Hiskey, Assoc. AIA, works in.