Supporting Student Success Through Space Design

We’ve all come to appreciate the physical places we use to socialize, learn, relax and ultimately go about our daily lives. For higher education students, the spaces they have access to can be critical to their education and growth as individuals. As design professionals, we wanted to talk about what these types of spaces are and how their design informs the intent, whether it be to tune in and socialize or tune out and study.

In this episode, we invited higher education clients to discuss the various spaces that support student success on their campuses. TreanorHL principals Tim Reynolds and Nadia Zhiri are joined by Caroline Bennett, Professor, Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas, and Matt Park, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Midwestern State University.

TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit treanorhl.com.

Learn more about the projects referenced in this episode:

• University of Kansas Learned Hall Engineering Expansion
• Midwestern State University Legacy Hall

TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit treanorhl.com.

Transcript

Megan Brock  00:01
Welcome to TreanorHL Talks, a podcast about architecture, planning and design trends as well as current events and noteworthy topics in the field. I am your host, Megan Brock, introducing today's topic: supporting student success through space design. We've all come to appreciate the physical places we use to socialize, learn, relax, and ultimately go about our daily lives. For higher education students, the spaces they have access to can be critical to their education and their growth as individuals. As design professionals, we wanted to talk about what these types of spaces are, and how their design informs the intent, whether it be to tune in and socialize with others around you, or to tune out and study or a combination of both. Here to talk about these spaces are members of the TreanorHL Higher Education studio, joined by our guest speakers Matt Park and Caroline Bennett. Matt serves as the Associate VP of Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Midwestern State University. And Caroline is a Professor, Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas. I have a great group of people joining me today, so let's get started with some introductions. 

Tim Reynolds  01:15
Well, hello, everyone. My name is Tim Reynolds. I'm a principal with TreanorHL in our Higher Education group.

Nadia Zhiri  01:22
Hello, I'm Nadia Zhiri, I'm also in the TreanorHL Higher Education group.

Lisa Lamb  01:27
I'm Lisa Lamb, an Associate Principal also with our Higher Education group.

Caroline Bennett  01:33
Hi, everyone. I'm Caroline Bennett, and I'm a professor in Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Kansas. Good to be here.

Matt Park  01:42
Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Park, and I serve as the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Midwestern State University in Texas.

Megan Brock  01:52
So Tim, and Nadia, would you mind giving us some background on your history working with Matt and Caroline?

Tim Reynolds  01:59
Well, great, I'll start. Caroline and I have known each other for a while. My oldest daughter actually went through the University of Kansas architectural and civil engineering program, partially because of Caroline, and we had the opportunity to work together on the expansion of the engineering facility at the University of Kansas, which was an incredibly rewarding job. And it's just been a great relationship.

Nadia Zhiri  02:33
Wanted to introduce Matt. And our background is, it's been since 2014, we were awarded a project at Midwestern state and it was a new residence hall. It was a living learning hall, and a drastically different type of facility than was existing. And Matt was the lead from the campus and overseeing the project execution. Matt was probably one of the best clients we've ever had. He was so engaged in the whole process and had opinions about everything, which makes a very good client to have. So you knew where you stood. And you also knew that decisions were getting made. It also was a very rewarding project to work on, because I feel like it really helped take some grand steps with the overall campus master plan. And subsequent to that experience. We were associated with Matt while we conducted some research on the community learning center that happens to be in that hall, specifically to support student academic success. So he's the right person to have in the room as we discuss spaces, environments and such for student success.

Tim Reynolds  03:56
And I need to add, though, for Caroline, you and Matt are tied for best client.

Matt Park  04:02
It's a state-based award. I think by engaged Nadia means picky and opinionated. That it was, it was a great project. And so yes, so within my student affairs hat, I do get to work with housing or Residence Life and Housing, and then also work with our Clark Student Center. So kind of working with some of the important student life spaces on our campus on a day-to-day basis. 

Megan Brock  04:33
Awesome. Now that we've covered some of the spaces we've worked on together, let's talk about what those spaces can really do for students. I'm going to ask the burning question: in our goal of aiding overall student success on campuses, does space matter?

Caroline Bennett  04:50
The answer is yes. Yeah, it does matter quite a bit. I mean, you know, so, spaces can set the whole situation. So in terms of if we're talking about student learning, because we could also be talking about, you know how well research performs or other functions within the university. But if I'm focusing for this minute on student learning, space really sets the stage for what the baseline expectation or what the default interactions should be between faculty and students. And so if I walk into a classroom, and it's set up with a podium at the front, and whiteboards or blackboards behind me, the default expectation is, is that's how I'm going to conduct my class, I'm going to conduct my class in a very traditional lecture format way. And if the class is set up, so that it looks fundamentally a little differently, then that tells me as soon as I walk into the room, that my students default expectations for how they might be engaging in that learning process is different. So that's one way in which it matters.

Matt Park  06:11
I agree the answer is yes. You know, how does space matter relative to student success? In many ways, you know, we could define success differently, but I think we may, Caroline may agree that we're looking at this from a student learning lens, a student engagement lens. And, and, and with that, yes, it sets the stage, sets the tone, you know, people want to feel welcomed in their spaces. Spaces convey purpose. And, and at the same time, there are some, you know, I think, different priorities when we think about spaces, you know, for example, designing something like a classroom, a traditional lecture hall is going to be very different than designing space, for example, in a student union, or student center, or perhaps a library, or a residence hall. And I know, I think we will get to some of these topics later in our conversation. But we also think about, you know, the ideas of flexible and multi-use space, but I think people develop a connection. As soon as they enter spaces, there is a first impression, and that conveys the intended purpose or use of that space, as well as a person's degree of comfort within that setting. Because people should feel comfortable, they should feel safe, they should feel productive toward what those goals in the moment are, and spaces help facilitate all of those principles.

Caroline Bennett  07:46
I think sometimes space is almost an extension of body language. So I'll use an example in that I had a terrible meeting, the meeting was the one of the things as I was reflecting later on, you know, this meeting. And why it didn't go well. One of the first things that occurred to me was the whole setup for this meeting was chosen very poorly, it was held in a classroom, and the person who was conducting the meeting was, you know, almost conducting it, like, they were talking to a class. That makes, boy, made me feel like a student. So, you know, maybe that's what you want, maybe that's the goal, but it really kind of pulled things into a lens that, had that been around a round table with us having a conversation, it would have been, for sure, a more relaxed body language, sort of position to start that meeting from. So the reverse is true, is I guess is my point, to come around to my actual point. If you use a space that is well designed for the type of the type of work you want to accomplish, or the type of tone you want to establish, man, that's a powerful thing. And when you're using a space that's not set up for that, man it really can work against you.

Lisa Lamb  09:21
Excellent point.

Megan Brock  09:24
Time for some fun facts. Caroline made a great point when she noted that space can both positively and negatively affect the success of the functions within. TreanorHL recently completed a research study on community learning centers at several campuses, including Midwestern State University. We found that something as small as providing instructions for how to use collaborative media equipment can change behavior and space usage. We found that if students don't understand the use or the technology within the space, it will rarely get used. Surprise, right? So when we say space matters in this podcast, we aren't just talking about the right way to set students up for success. We also recognize that each student body is different and that understanding behavior and motivation is critical to providing spaces that will ultimately be successful. So what about flexibility? If you walk into a space, and it's set up one way, do we have the ability to change the orientation before students even enter a space? And how does that change depending on your space type, such as a classroom space versus a living space?

Matt Park  10:34
Yes, so kind of thinking about it, from my perspective, student life spaces. So studying spaces, communal spaces, programming spaces, flexibility, to me is something that is really important. And I think it's become even more important over the last several years. Spaces are expensive to design and build, and to furnish. And, and so it's important, I think, to consider an eye toward the future and have that adaptability. Like what Caroline mentioned, though, let's say that that same classroom, that maybe where the meeting did not go so well, had movable surfaces or chairs, and could have easily transitioned from a classroom, more of that, you know, one-way presentation model to the square or U-shaped conference setting, it sounds like it may have had a positive impact on your experience from that, that particular event. So whether we're talking about, you know, furniture, that's much easier to move around, if it's on casters, or glides, or settings where there can be privacy versus openness. Flexibility is something I think that's really important. From a student life perspective. There are certain things maybe that don't go too far in that realm. You know, if we're looking to develop a space where student studying is taking place, we're probably not wanting to have a bunch of like loud, ambience and other noise adjacent, we still would want to maintain that. So that maybe there's that sense of privacy. But yeah, flexibility. I think you hit it right on the head, Megan, with the first question or second question. From a student life perspective, I think that's something that's really valuable, important to look at.

Caroline Bennett  12:24
Yeah, when I think about the importance of flexibility of space, you know, it's, it's important from so many different perspectives. Matt, what you were talking about was the level of importance to the people using the space at that time. But the project that Tim referenced, that we worked on together, it's still just a really catchy acronym called LEEP2, it stands for Learned Engineering Expansion, Phase 2, you would think that at this point, we would have a catchier name, but it's LEEP2. So anyways, it's this fabulous, it really is a fabulous building. And it has a number of classrooms in it, there are six classrooms, and they were all designed to be student-centered active learning spaces. And so we went through the planning process for that building a while back, and I was one of the faculty members engaged with that planning committee. And we eventually arrived at a kind of classroom design setup that was inherently flexible, because it was the only way we were going to reach consensus. With that planning group, it had to be flexible to satisfy a series of what were otherwise really conflicting design requirements. So it's also a really great way to build consensus around how a space is going to be used.

Tim Reynolds  13:57
You know, I think one of the things that always struck me about working with Caroline and LEEP2 was that there were there were very few spaces that students really could capture and call their own in the existing building. I laugh because we have a picture of one of the corridors in the existing building was 400+ feet long and about eight feet wide. And I thought of that as their collaboration space, because there weren't that many spaces. But what struck me from KU's standpoint and from Carolyn standpoint in the School of Engineering was the desire to create a home. And I wonder if you guys could talk a little bit about how if students, Matt, you started talking about if they feel safe and they feel comfortable in the environment? How important is it to create that home or place that they'd rather spend time there potentially than at Starbucks or wherever?

Matt Park  14:51
With my student affairs hat on, when we talk about principles of safety and security and support, belonging and inclusion, those are all values that are evident and elements within space. And so, you know, from a residential student standpoint, we want to be designing those those housing-type based facilities that bear those principles in mind. But for my campus and many others, there are a number of commuter students who are coming to campus, that they may be looking at the campus as a place where they are escaping or getting away or getting into something where they are more comfortable. And so whether they are there for studying, whether they're there for collaboration, you know, conducting research working with a mentor, I think students have to feel they have there's, there's a certain degree of a sense of belonging, and the belonging is not so much the immediate or direct connection in this context with other persons, but belonging in the environment, that they feel that they should be there and are therefore comfortable.

Matt Park  16:07
Tim, when you mentioned the 400-foot hallway, you know, I was just thinking of an example of, you know, some spaces where, let's say, you know, faculty members, instead of that being just their offices in their doors, how a space like that could be activated so that when students are wanting to have those conversations, they can step out into the hallway, and there's some soft seating or markerboard on the wall. And it kind of makes that interaction and learning a little bit more of a community sense. But, yeah, in terms of safety and security, you know, we could talk about principles like access control and surveillance, but I think if we think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one of the most basic kind of psychological principles that that degree of safety is pretty, pretty low on the pyramid, you know, right above physiological needs. And so if people don't feel safe in their space, they're certainly not going to be able to be productive, and focus on whatever is important in that moment. Hopefully, that is their student learning, their success, their connections. And so I think people do have to have that connection and feel safe. Absolutely.

Caroline Bennett  17:18
Tim, we still have that hallway.

Tim Reynolds  17:23
Yeah, I apologize, I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it.

Caroline Bennett  17:27
Yeah. And so it is funny. I mean, we used to just have like, tons of groups of students sitting in the hallway, that's where they would, you know, they really worked on their, their homework, they're in their backpack spread out around them and their books and their calculators. And so that was a big desire from, I think the planning process for the new for the new building, that expanded, the School of Engineering was to give those students a place to actually work where they could collaborate and coordinate with each other. And it did, it did provide that, so there's a lot of dedicated student collaboration space. And, you know, Tim, you could probably talk about what your experience was, like trying to have that happen. But I imagine it's not an easy thing to build consensus around that it's worth dedicating really precious square footage to space for people to use for whatever the problem is that day. But every day I walked by our collaboration spaces, and they're each you know, set up a table and chairs and whiteboards and students use those like crazy. And so they are extremely valuable spaces, but I think it takes a little bit of vision to be willing to dedicate square footage to that use in particular.

Megan Brock  19:01
Here's some more research-based fun facts for you. Caroline's right, KU students do use those collaboration spaces like crazy. In 2016, TreanorHL completed a post-occupancy evaluation of the LEEP2 facility referenced in this episode. The results were clear. Students love the collaborative nature of the classrooms with 74% surveyed stating that they collaborate very often with other students in those rooms. This compares to only 18% of the same group of students reporting this type of collaboration in traditional classrooms and lecture halls. Overall, 74% surveyed also believe that the LEEP2 facility has had a positive impact on their academic success.

Matt Park  19:46
Caroline, let me add on to what you were just talking about, the areas of collaboration spaces, and yet I don't tend to see students going into classrooms during out of class time. To collaborate, they're using these more common and designated spaces that are being designed. And there's just so much of that that happens, you know, that collaborative learning, and studying and preparing for projects and exams. And so whether we're talking about our academic buildings, our student life buildings, that's something I think that has changed fairly. I don't want to say recently, it's been happening, but I don't think I see many buildings being built now where collaboration spaces are not inherent in that design. But if there is a campus, which is struggling to prioritize its spaces and finding that the collaboration spaces are on the chopping block, I would, I would advise against that, from my perspective, I think that is something that's kind of going against the grain for how we can support student success in our environments.

Nadia Zhiri  20:55
I had a question for you, Matt, that Caroline brought up the idea that there has to be consensus built at times, and maybe it's easier now. But as years have gone on, I'm sure you've sat in this in the chair where you want those collaboration spaces, you want some amenity spaces, you know how important it is for the students to interact? And do you have difficulty in building that consensus? Or has that changed over time? 

Matt Park  21:27
I think it's a consistent challenge. And Caroline hit it when she talks about how flexibility is one of the strategies to build consensus. One of the strategies that I think is, is making sure students are involved in the process. And I should say, not just students, but all stakeholders, and I believe students are an important group of stakeholders when we talk about programming and design. But look, most of us don't have an unlimited budget when it comes to capital improvements and renovations and construction, or we have limited square footage that we're working with. And so there are always difficult decisions that need to be made. But there are, there are ways to approach the building of consensus and values-based principled democratic manners, that makes sure everyone is included and has a voice and is able to see why the decisions and the outcomes that are made results. But yeah, I mean, I can think about the project, you know, we worked on Nadia, Legacy Hall. And there were ideas on the programming list that at the end of the day had to come out. But I feel that, you know, through that more shared and collaborative, collegial process, the most important things are what made it into the project. And that is one of the reasons that it has been and continues to be successful.

Lisa Lamb  23:03
I think Matt and Caroline, you both alluded this a little bit, and talking about, you know, sort of that fluidity of maybe a faculty member coming out of an office to meet with a student or Caroline with faculty, how they feel when they walk into a classroom and without preconceived notion of what that class is going to be. Do you find that other spaces are also impacting how faculty and students interact with one another? And know, are they feeling supported? Not just peer to peer, but peer to faculty? And, and, you know, what are some examples of spaces that might influence that a little bit?

Caroline Bennett  23:40
Yeah, I'll give you one example, that I think has been, has been a really nice success story along those lines are our engineering complex, before the new building, didn't really have what we would call a front door. And part of the new addition was that it provided a front door to the engineering complex. And so you walk in, and there's this really beautiful atrium, and it's filled with soft seating and little coffee tables and things like that. And it is right across from the Office for Student Success and engineering. And so the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs or the Associate Dean for Undergrad Studies would come out from their office and have their coffee out there. And they would just be available to students to ask questions and really form relationships. So shared spaces like that. And I think shared spaces are almost necessary for those sorts of informal interactions to occur. There so important. And that space in particular has been a really has been a really great example for how some of those connections to just kind of happen.

Matt Park  25:00
I think we we're past the days of thinking that learning exists in the vacuum of a classroom. And so one of the things I have found on our campus and others being successful in the notion of shared spaces is the importance of the relationship-building. And what I mean by that is, I think we need to make sure that our faculty members feel welcome and invited to, you know, enter and utilize spaces outside of the academic college, you know, where their respective departments and offices reside in. Unfortunately, use of space can be somewhat of a siloed phenomena on campuses where there's a degree of territoriality. And we've probably all seen examples of that, and some of our work. So I think it takes a conscious effort to make sure that those relationships are built and maintained. And I think we can look at it both ways as well, in the sense of are there event-related spaces within our academic colleges that are open to use for campus events or organizations to utilize, you know, certainly, there's an extra pressure or challenge that we've got to make sure that we are attending to the cleaning, the maintenance, the security of those spaces when we open it up to the broader audiences or populations.

Matt Park  26:34
But I believe that those are positive contributors toward the overall campus environment, when we realize, you know, I think at the end of the day, we have our different ways of going about it. But we're, we are united in our emphasis on student learning and student success. And when we work together, we are able to further that mission. And so I was thinking of one thing uniquely on this one, Lisa, and so I was skeptical about the idea of it. And I'll tell you a little bit more about why. So when we designed our residence hall project Legacy Hall, the Living-Learning Center, we actually built a faculty-in-residence apartment, into the building, we took out a movie theater type space in order to put that apartment in on the first floor. So you know, there's an example of how we kind of weighed this group, the strategic priorities. But you know, we were looking for an opportunity to help students increase their connections and understanding with the faculty role, particularly entering students first and second year students. And it's been a success so far. So we see that as a result of that program, students are more comfortable approaching some of their professors that they realize that they can communicate with their professors not solely in class and office hours, but in fact, get to know them a little bit. And that's been helpful for us. But when we were going into that project, there were campuses that I was speaking to, and they were telling us stories about how, yeah, we built this apartment or this program. And now it's just empty space, we did something else with it, which, you know, when you're when you're when you're challenged, or strapped for space, or resources are whatever you want to make every dollar count. But that's an example though, just you know, to look at living and learning and see if there are opportunities to further integrate our academic support and success mission into even a residential setting.

Megan Brock  28:33
So both of you have alluded to the importance of access to both spaces and faculty. We've also talked a bit about safety and security, how does access and the design components involved affect a student's sense of security?

Caroline Bennett  28:51
Matt may have more to say than I do on this topic. So I'll just kind of give you some knee-jerk reactions, I honestly have not really thought about our, our spaces a whole lot from kind of a safety or security perspective. They're locked at night, they're open during the day, there's a lot of openness, you know, throughout the building during the day. So I think there's just a lot of just a lot of activity going on all day long. So I I'd be surprised if anyone told me that the space felt unsafe to them. But maybe it's more appropriate to think about that in terms of a residence hall than a, you know, kind of a classroom/research lab building.

Nadia Zhiri  29:39
You know, the fact that your spaces are open and that you can see in is a safety feature, meaning if they'd been rooms with doors on them, there may have been a different hesitancy to share space, commonly, you know, like to a group setting if there wasn't some transparency with it, for example. So a lot has to do with transparency, and not feeling like you have to go down a dark hallway to get to a room in order to collaborate and so on. So we intuitively realize that probably as we're designing and discussing what we want, as a space.

Matt Park  30:16
This is a challenging one, I think, in part because I think the principles or values related to safety are somewhat individually based, you know, from our own backgrounds and our lived experiences. So I don't want to presume to think I have all of the answers. I know, Nadia, that was a good point that, you know, that notion of transparency or openness or lighting. I'd be surprised if we see any type of new building, and there's a long, dark, dim hallway with nooks and crannies, you know, but, man, there's other things from a physical sense. I think we can think about things such as access, lighting, openness, the presence of security influences, whether that be cameras, staff, you know, the panic phones, and blue light phones and buttons and whatnot. I think two is, you know, like in our in a residence hall setting, let's just think about that for a moment. So the place where someone lives, in their bedroom, and their personal belongings, they certainly need to have that sense of safety and security in that setting. And I suspect many places have specific protocols and policies addressing matters related to that, for example, here at Midwestern our residence halls essentially are secure, meaning that only the residents of those buildings are permitted access, unless they are escorting a guest or something like that.

Matt Park  31:17
I think, too, I was thinking about safety and security and sort of a principle of, you know, kind of inclusion and belonging, and I was thinking about, you know, marginalized and minoritized students, and that do they feel there is a sense of identity and in those spaces, and so we can think about maybe accessibility, when we think about students who might have a mobility disability, we can think about, if we have images, artwork in the spaces, you know, are we reflecting the diversity and uniqueness of our student bodies and our employees? Or is it you know, see me to go one way or the other? If we're celebrating, you know, aspects related to religion or spirituality, probably the best example being, you know, the Christmas holidays. Do we have a lot of Christmas trees and imagery there are we kind of also displaying value or, a support for you know, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah, since, international students may be another thing. So I think that maybe it's not the direct aspect of physical safety that we often think about. But when I think about feelings of security, my mind goes towards areas of support, as well. We could go different directions on safety and security, and what all of those little those pieces are, and you could probably have a multi-podcast series on that topic.

Tim Reynolds  33:30
The interesting thing about the expansion for KU, and this was driven by Caroline and the faculty and stakeholders, was there was this idea that hierarchy should fall away, in terms of, you know, most research facilities have this as a research and teaching, obviously, but in most facilities like that, the public spaces are on the lower floors. And as you go up, security goes up. And you feel less likely to go into those spaces. And I think what KU came across from the KU standpoint was, we're doing some amazing work in our research labs, and we want our undergraduates involved in that. So they should be able to see, they should be able to walk around the facility, they should be able to see what goes on, which I think makes it more open, more inviting. And I think that that doesn't work for everybody. And the research labs are still all secured, obviously. But there's a lot of transparency and there's a lot of freedom for students to walk around and see the amazing work and that was all driven by the folks at KU.

Caroline Bennett  34:41
Yeah, I think those spaces, the transparency into the research labs, is unusual for sure. It's not something that existed when I went to school and you know, at a different institution and it's, it really is a great way to showcase what's happening, what the work looks like. Students walking down the hallway can see other students working in those labs and kind of put themselves in their shoes and say, hey, maybe I should think about possibly being a student like that working in the lab. Now I can take no credit for that I, you know, all credit has to go to JoAnn Browning and other folks in the in the Dean's office when that planning was happening about and you all, at TreanorHL, you know, setting them up that way. But as an observer and a faculty member, I can absolutely say it has been a really, really great feature of those laboratory spaces.

Matt Park  35:44
We recently opened a new health science building in our campus, and I call it learning theater. And it has some of the principles, Caroline, that you were just talking about that these nursing and radiology and multi-discipline labs are, you can see into them. And so it's great for, you know, recruiting and being able to see the learning that is taking place. And I think that's kind of something that's a more recent trend that I'm seeing on campuses as well. When we built a community learning center, for example, into the residence hall that TreanorHL designed for us, and very similar, it's you can see into it from the common areas from the outside areas. But what would be better for us to actually show the fact that this is what student life and student learning looks like. And so I think that that's a trend that will continue, I think it's been great than just having those sort of more. I don't just want to use the word secure, but almost hidden spaces where really great work and research and collaboration was going on, with students with their faculty mentors. Yeah, graduate students and everything.

Lisa Lamb  37:04
And Matt , to ask on that, too, just because we've been working on that research project with you, how much do you think furniture plays into supporting space, and the student comfort and belonging in some of these areas like that?

Matt Park  37:19
A lot. It plays into it a lot. When I think about the student life spaces and the furniture and furnishings that we use, it can make all of the difference. It can make or break a space. And now I've learned lessons over time, you know, I'm much more inclined to use vinyl upholstery or things with patterns that you know, solid, bright colors that we found are awesome for the first year and then a nightmare to keep clean after that. But absolutely, the furnishings make a significant difference. Furnishings can mean everything in the sense of are people going to be inclined to use that space to study to meet with their class group or friends to hang out to be comfortable putting down their laptop and taking a power nap. And those are all things that the furnishings can do. We talked about flexibility kind of at the start. furnishings have to be flexible too, because I promise that students will want to move things around based on the situation that they're in. And that should be easy to do. It's easy to move back to. But we want, you know, we want to be able to accommodate what the students are needing when they're in our spaces. So yeah, I'm a big fan for how furniture can make or break the spaces. And so there are a lot of considerations to look into. Caroline, have you seen that?

Caroline Bennett  38:47
I'm thinking back to that faculty committee that was focused on planning the classrooms, spaces and the new LEEP2 building. And I don't think we ever talked a lot about like square footage decisions or ceiling height or you know, that those were done, you know, those were done. But our conversations, were completely focused on what we wanted the space to be set up like and that's a furniture-driven conversation. I can't tell you how many meetings we had where we were talking about different layouts for within a set space. And how the experience would be affected by selection of, you know, one type of table versus another type of table. Did we want five students at a table, three students at a table, nine students at a table, where they round, where they square, where they D-shaped if they weren't round? Which way did they point? You know, all of these, we had just myriad questions around that. And in fact for a while we decided this, this conversation was so critical to how well the spaces were going to be used and accepted by faculty and students, that we actually had a mock-up classroom where we had different types of furniture in there. And we had the students vote on their favorite types of chair, and faculty got to try out kind of the recommended furniture setup. Before we bought it all, because it was, it was such an important decision in that process.

Matt Park  40:34
Caroline, so I call that the sit test that you talked about. And I gotta say this, the sit test is a great way to engage the stakeholders within the spaces and to help generate that enthusiasm, and excitement as well. So you know, what you just described with the faculty members, we were able to deal with students when we were designing our living-learning residence hall, and got some great feedback from it. I realized furniture is easier to change than construction. But unfortunately, when it comes to construction and renovation, what can happen is, the furniture budget is one of the last things that gets spent. And so, you know, I've seen a couple times where those budgets have to be reduced, because certain other aspects needed to be incorporated into the construction. I would just encourage you to hold on to that FF&E budget as much as you can. Because again, it really can make or break the end result of space. Some of the hardest spaces to design are the ones that are wide open, you know, because it's almost like how do you have multiple settings, multiple furnishings, it's like, take a big square rectangular room and try to break it into these almost more focused or intentional spaces. But it was also a great opportunity to work with students, to work with staff, to work with faculty, to have those conversations about goals. But we could go on talking about furniture for a long time, I'll say too, I think it's helpful to engage an interior designer or architect, someone when you have large spaces and large purchases, if that doesn't exist already on campus. You know, at least from a student affairs professional side, there isn't a grad course that we teach about furniture selection, so try to engage an expert within that area, it will lead to better results.

Matt Park  41:45
It's funny that you say that because my disciplinary background is structural engineering. So I have this particular impression of what architects do. And during those meetings, at some point, I remember thinking like, wait, architects deal with furniture? Because so much of our conversations were focused on the furniture. So anyways, hugely important.

Tim Reynolds  42:52
That mock-up that we built, which was I think one of the most important things that we probably did. I think the first semester there were only a couple of classes taught in the mock-up. There was some, you know, well, what are we doing? I think the students loved it, because you let the students in there all the time, they had the technology to pull together presentations and things. But I think as the next semester, and maybe one more came along, it became really a very popular place to actually teach and learn. And I think that told us a lot about the direction we were going to go.

Nadia Zhiri  43:29
What type of mock-up was it?

Caroline Bennett  43:30
It was a full classroom.

Tim Reynolds  43:33
It was a 60-person classroom with the D-shaped tables and monitors, and we didn't waste anything I will tell you by doing the mock-up, right. Which another credit to KU is the engineering library, which was mainly stacks. When we started the project, even the library folks, as long as we kept calling it a library after the fact, they got rid of, I think 80 or 90 percent of their stacks. And that was all turned back into student collaboration, student study, student workspace, which I think has been a big hit. 

Caroline Bennett  44:14
Yep, absolutely. Yeah, that mock-up classroom was huge, because in addition to, you know, students kind of getting comfortable with it. Wow, it was, it was a huge tool for us in terms of faculty getting comfortable with using classroom space differently. And you know, what you mentioned about perhaps the, you know, the usage of that space being a little lower to begin with, but then really picking up. Once people had a little bit of a prototype to see and engage with, it made it so much easier. So I honestly can't imagine having opened up the new building without having had that because I think it would have been a really difficult training decision for faculty and students to do all at once. Wonderful point.

Megan Brock  45:05
So let's look ahead a bit. Since the buildings we've been discussing have been built, we've been through a pandemic, we've been through political changes and new generations of students. What do you think is important to keep in mind moving forward as we make these spaces work for the next gen students?

Caroline Bennett  45:24
So I want to go back to this idea of flexibility, because it was so key to the success that we saw with our building. And if I could change anything, I would make it even more flexible. Because space can be an integral piece in changing how we do something, and making it and setting it up to be as productive as possible. But at the end of the day, there's also like this whole cultural and social change piece that happens within institutions. And that takes a lot of time. And people have to get really comfortable as they go through processes like that. And I think, to the extent that we can really, really maximize flexibility, I think that's it a big, big deal.

Matt Park  46:21
I would echo Caroline's importance of flexibility. I think going forward spaces are becoming increasingly technology-rich, as well. This may seem somewhat, maybe kind of too simple, but it's almost sometimes you know, we design for the technology of the present, but then 10 years into the future, we are having to come in and, and, you know, do some retrofitting, and I'm not suggesting that that will entirely go away. But it seems that we should be able to kind of try to have a pulse on what is the emerging technologies of the time and almost over-designing or over-planning or over-building the spaces, you know, toward accomplishing that, you know, just thinking about now the idea of where and when people are charging devices, and how they are doing it. And it's no longer just the use of the standard electrical plug, it's a USB or a USBC. And who knows, there's wireless charging out there now. And when we think about just thinking in our, in our classroom settings, and the technology that we use, and certainly I think the pandemic has kind of added an exclamation mark on this, but how are we able to conduct and facilitate and support education and learning, you know, at a distance using technology as an aid, not as a substitute. And so those, I think that that's something that will be, it has to be, a factor in the spaces that we design, you know, right now on multiple levels. 

Matt Park  48:07
One thing I thought maybe just important to mention, we've talked so much about, I think interior spaces today, but I think there's significant opportunity to look at outdoor spaces as well to support student success on our campuses. And because there can be wonderful interaction and wonderful learning and outdoor settings that come through, you know, intentional design and intentional planning. I don't know if Caroline, Tim, that was in all incorporated within the LEEP2 project and how, you know, things kind of flowed outside, but at least kind of from the residential living standpoint. You know, Nadia those courtyards that we design, I mean, there are great active spaces to support, you know, student programming, students hanging out when the weather's not crazy hot in Texas, but they'll be out there having their coffee or studying and things like that. So I realize there's a lot of emphasis going on with what we do inside of the buildings. But we have a lot of space on our campuses, outside of the buildings as well, that can help you know, foster our mission, and that learning and community building.

Caroline Bennett  49:19
It's a great point, you know, particularly this last year and a half has really caused us to think about outdoor space wildly differently, it suddenly became so much more valuable. I mean, in fact, we had, we still have tents around campus for students to gather if if they would prefer to gather outside rather than an enclosed spaces inside. And the LEEP2 building did have a really nice entry out into kind of a triangle green and so it is very nicely incorporated. But what a great point, just huge importance in outdoor spaces. And the last year and a half has made that so clear.

Tim Reynolds  50:08
And that space, you talked about the exterior space, there's also a pope's balcony is what I call it from the entry, because we always considered that a space for gathering to write that you could gather there and have large social functions there, which kind of went away but in any event, I always had this view of the Dean walking out and waving to everybody out in the courtyard. But the exterior spaces, I think, are just as important from a programming and design standpoint as the interior spaces. So great point. Thank you.

Megan Brock  50:45
Really great points. We could have many more episodes talking about this, and especially those exterior spaces we didn't even get to cover today. Thank you so much for joining me, everyone. And hopefully we'll hear from you again very soon. As designers, our job is to provide space solutions for colleges and universities that seek to support their students in achieving healthy social and academic success. It's a tough balance. As student preferences and needs adapt over time, so must our buildings. See episode notes, or visit treanorhl.com to learn more about how we've helped our clients with space solutions that fit their unique needs and budgets. Thank you for joining us on this episode of TreanorHL Talks. TreanorHL is a national architecture, planning and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the spaces we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit treanorhl.com.