Designers at Their Desk: Joan Declet
Designer Joan Declet
Designers at Their Desk is a monthly feature showcasing a conversation with one of our staff, their unique outlook on architecture and design, hobbies, interests, and their current projects.
For designers, their preferred creative process is somewhat sacred. Some prefer free thinking and space to do whatever feels right in the moment, while others might want premeditated steps that provide structured practices in creativity. The process itself is not created, but rather developed, throughout projects and learned experiences.
Joan working at her desk in the New Orleans studio.
Joan Declet, a designer in EDR’s New Orleans office, has crafted a specific set of steps that allows her linear-inclined brain to think freely. In other words, Joan realized that she needed structure to provide her with the freedom to think big, to design the beautiful spaces she was developing.
“I have refined my creative process over the course of school and studio classes. I don’t think I had a good idea of what type of process I needed until I started working,” she said. “I love routine; I have always been that person. In terms of architecture, though, creativity is necessary. My structured creative process allows that creative thinking to flow while moving through the steps I have set up for myself. In other words, the whole process is just problem solving, trying to figure out where the problems are and making a list of priorities,” Joan continues.
“I don’t feel like creativity is something that you lose if you don’t exercise it, but I feel like you would miss out on so many opportunities to do something different if you don’t use your creativity.”
Joan is an experienced designer, but she is somewhat new to the EDR team. She joined our New Orleans studio in May and has been with our Live/Work team, developing multi-family housing projects and joining in on various projects where needed.
“I was sort of thrown on a project that was just in its beginning stages, so I was able to sketch, create, and flex my creative muscles immediately. We get to stretch ourselves creatively all the time here. Any kind of idea is welcome,” Joan explained.
But she is not stranger to creativity, with lifelong experience and passion for art, architecture, and other creative mediums. During her time at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Joan realized that her original major─ advertising and graphic design─ did not challenge her in the ways she wanted. Joan had always thought that architecture required too much extroversion for her self-described introverted nature.
A commercial redesign of an old hardware store building; Joan is serving as a designer on the team.
An exterior study of an mixed-use building Joan is designing with other architects on the team.
“I thought I wanted to do graphic design and advertising because the job would consist of me working alone, so as an introvert, that was something I found appealing. I thought I wanted to stay within a safe cocoon of being shy, but I realized, after switching to an architecture major in school, that my love for architecture was greater than my fear of putting myself out there, like you have to do often in the architecture industry,” she explained.
After receiving both Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Art degrees from SCAD, Joan worked in Atlanta, developing student housing designs, and then moved on to DC. “While I was there, I worked primarily in multifamily housing with a client that was brand new to the multifamily industry. I was able to help them build up their brand in terms of how their apartment units looked, which target market they were looking to hit,” Joan said. She was learning with the client, developing a better understanding of how the industry worked, which was “a great introduction to learn the business side of architecture.”
But Joan felt there was more out there architecturally for her career, so she decided to move to New Orleans to work here. “I am still working in multifamily housing, but nothing is cookie cutter; there is no monotony of pushing out similar products one after the other like I had done in the past,” she said. “It has been more engaging, and I feel like my creative muscles have been flexed a lot more in the months here than in the past few years in other roles.”
Joan flips through some of her sketches for an upcoming project to explain parts of her creative process.
Part of this flexing of creative muscles is refining her ability to draw inspiration from precedents outside of the world of architecture. For Joan, her love for sci-fi movies feeds her architectural inspiration. She explained, “I always think of movies when I think of architecture. Some of my favorites are Arrival and 2001: A Space Odyssey, which are really interesting and feel architectural to me when I watch them.”
Other times a specific color or artist will catalyze ideas. “Right now, I really like this ochre yellow color, and I am trying to incorporate that on a project for an office space we are working on,” Joan says, explaining that a singular color can occupy her mind for a long time before the right context for it will appear.
Outside of the studio, Joan enjoys other creative mediums. “I try to listen to a new album a week, in the order on the album (as the artists intended). This week, I have been listening to Hozier’s newest album, Unreal Unearth, and one from the Monophonics, a neo-soul band,” she stated excitedly. And she tries her hand at cooking, in honor of her heritage. “My parents are from Puerto Rico, so being able to learning how to cook those foods makes me feel more connected to my family and culture. Right now, I am going through a kind of journey on learning how to cook that stuff myself; it’s been good so far,” Joan says.
Room featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In between creative brainstorming, design charrettes, and cooking in her kitchen, Joan explores the city of New Orleans by walking. It feels natural to her, as she did the same in Savannah, with its “historic downtown with old architecture, live oaks.” She says, “It’s very much the same here, finding things on happenstance in the area.”