El Dorado

While our trip to El Dorado was shorter than many would have liked it was not a total loss. We were afforded the opportunity to see inside a successful, once-but-no-longer-startup, architecture firm built by people from similar backgrounds and communities to ourselves. it was interesting to see how they modified an old industrial space with modular furniture of their own design to help make a collaborative and creative environment. El Dorado does work for everyone from individuals to municipalities and public works, and after perusing perusing their website it seems they prioritize sustainable, industrial modern works that benefit the community. My carpool group missed most of what was apparently a brief talk about the fabrication area of El Dorado, but we were informed that they can do much of the metal and glass works necessary to make scale mockups for clients to experience specific aspects of potential designs, which was surprising to me based on the overall small volume of space available at their location. A valuable piece of advice we were left with was to be mindful of the information we consume and to prioritize knowing whats going on in the design world in order to understand where our skills lie in the scheme of things, and also to use it as motivation to raise the bar for ourselves and to challenge those we grow with to reach higher as well.