Corinne Friesen

From my background in serving, I have developed exceptional customer service skills, but moreover, I have learned how to listen to what people want. Restaurants provide an excellent opportunity to provide service to diverse dinners with wildly different expectations. Each table is different and, to be a good server, one must develop a sixth sense for understanding and meeting those uncommunicated desires for their dining experience.

I have successfully taken this skill and intertwined it with my love of creating an ambiance; I have designed and executed for eight weddings, a restaurant, a number of home and smaller room remodels, and even a downtown main street planting overhaul. Almost all of the projects I've worked on have been for other people, with widely different tastes and expectations. I can listen to others' ideas and understand on a deep level the feeling they want to develop in a space, and I can execute these ideas in real life, using space, texture, color, light. But weddings and planter beds are temporary, even remodeling is transient, with trends changing frequently in a consumption based economy.

In my experience, truly amazing architecture can only occur when design deeply touches the root use of a space. Even if a space looks amazing, it will go unappreciated if the functionality is lacking. I endeavor to combine my past experience and skills in understanding people and how they want to use a space with greater technical skill and knowledge so that I can create spaces that function effortlessly and are truly beautifully.