My First Internship Experiences

In 1986, I began my architectural career by working as in intern with a company in a city near where I grew up, Meridian, Mississippi. The company started out as Luke and Lewis Architects. I worked for Robert Luke and Robert Lewis for a winter holiday and a summer. The firm then changed names to Luke, McMullan & Kaye Architects, and then changed names to Luke & Kaye Architects… Bob Luke being the consistent Architect throughout the time that I was there.

The office was on the second floor of a building located on 22nd Avenue and Ninth street. During that time, I learned some of the more basic things associated with Architectural Drafting by hand using ink… including erasing work by hand with an ink eraser. I learned the ‘rigors’ of creating reproducible drawings using the diazo – blue line / ammonia based reprographic technology that existed at the time.

Since the time that I worked there was in the winter, there was also no heating in the back room where the diazo print machine was. I learned the ‘hard way’ about how to grab paper without getting too many paper cuts.

This was prior to the popular use of computers for anything more than word processing. I had to draw using hand lettering (of which they used the traditional ‘lead holders’, learning how to sand one side of the graphite enough to create a thin line and using the other side of the graphite for thicker lines for writing other aspects / elements of letters.

One of the experiences that stuck out to me was the importance of taking care to write the correct amounts of materials on sheets… one of the office members had written a “2” instead of a “7”, and ended up costing the client about $5,000.00

While there, I performed the following job functions:

  • Initiated schematic design concepts and developed them into construction drawings
  • Developed color scheme layouts
  • Rendered presentation drawings
  • Developed alternative solutions to design problems
  • Organized an in-house research Library

There, I worked on the building that is now the Meridian Community College Fitness Center. You may find it at this link.