Brenda Smith began her career as a nurse in New York, but now leads healthcare and hospital projects at global architecture firm Perkins and Will. She explains how she got there for the Dezeen Jobs careers guide.
Smith is responsible for overseeing all healthcare projects and strategies for Perkins and Will's New York studio. This involves connecting the work of the firm's seven research labs to the daily design and planning of the New York office.
Before becoming an architect, Smith was a practising oncology nurse. After enrolling on various night courses, Smith found her way to architecture and interior design, and "immediately felt at home".
"While I enjoyed both the technical and the problem-solving aspects of nursing, I had this strong need for creative exploration and expression that wasn't possible within the rigour of healthcare," she explained. "For me, design is the obvious balance between technical rigour and creative expression and exploration."
While studying interior design at Pratt Institute in New York, Smith continued to work as a nurse on weekends until her third year, where she worked 30-hour weeks at a local firm on interior projects in the finance and banking industry.
"It was a great place to get started," she recalled. "Because they were relatively small, I got exposed to all aspects of what we do ? and quickly."
After building a career in interior design, working on commercial projects, as well as som...