Welcome everybody to the 30th post of the “This Can all Be Easier” blog. My name is Angie Bachman. Every week, I’m fortunate enough to be able to speak with you on a range of clinical efficiency, organizational strategies and coaching opportunities to increase your practice productivity. This month I thought we’d dive a little deeper into the heart of actually designing the best Dental Practices in the nation.
I’m also fortunate enough to work with the best minds in the dental office design business - and over the next few weeks, I’m giving them the spotlight! October is Dental Office Design Month. Today, you will get an outside-the-box look at how your vision of the future first begins to take shape. So let me introduce you to the brilliant Gabriel Pearlman, Senior Practice Designer at Design Ergonomics…
The First Spark
We all know that the precision and thoughtfulness of a treatment plan is moot if your patient doesn’t agree to it. Some of you reading this may have, in fact, spent hours planning the best possible case presentation only to be disappointed to hear that your patient can’t afford it, doesn’t care enough to spend the money, or isn’t interested in saving their tooth.
What value does a ‘perfect’ drawing have if it does not serve your concept in some way? How much is it really worth if you just plain ‘don’t like it’? These questions lead us to the concept of sketching before drawing - or really, before creating anything important. Have you ever looked at the details on the Statue of David? Wondered how the Pyramids in Egypt possibly came about? Or truly indulged yourself in the history of the Coliseum in Rome? All these historical masterpieces started with a basic concept (head, neck, sand, stacks, concrete, steps). They were, at one point, all rough drafts in action with moving parts that told a story with each brick, layer or body feature that was added as each concept was perfected.
This process applies to any work of art, and is a tried and true method of design development when brilliant minds think alike:
Torso Drawing Progression by Zin Lim
Such is the case with dental office planning. Your concept of your practice must come first from your head and onto the page as a sketch. For Design Ergonomics, this is the Blocking Diagram phase. That sketch can then be erased, modified, and easily retooled without having to deal with the heavy labor of redrawing an entire floor plan with all its intricate levels of detail.
Once this diagram is at a level that captures your vision, THEN we build further detail, and work out even more substance. But if the sketch is wrong, then the final piece of art will never look right. Which is why the blocking diagram is the first - and in some very real ways - the most critical step your design can take towards perfection.
I love this. What a unique glimpse into the creative process! Thank you, Gabe!
Stay tuned - next week we’ll be investigating Interior Design. I always knew it required an artistic eye to design a beautiful dental practice - but I was absolutely amazed at how technically demanding ID actually is!
See you then!