Join us as we explore the positive impact of architecture and design on college campuses. Our guest and principal architect/CFO, Kent, will provide valuable insights on creating an environment that fosters growth and success. Whether you're a student, faculty member, or just curious, this episode is a must-listen.
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Episode Transcript
Skyler: Welcome to another episode of Laying the Foundation. Welcome back to another episode of Laying the Foundation's podcast. I am here with Kent. Kent is one of our principal architects at the Des Moines office And Kent, welcome to the show.
Kent: Thanks thanks, Skyler.
Skyler: Yeah, glad to have you here, kent. you're here to talk to us a little bit about how we can, or how architecture and design is used, to positively impact higher education campuses. Tell me a little bit about, i mean, maybe just your involvement with architecture and design when it comes to higher education, higher education campuses, and a little bit about, yeah, like what you worked on, just to kind of kick things off.
Kent: Sure, i'd be happy to. Although higher education includes quite a gamut of space types, you know, from health and hazardous material storage buildings to performing arts. Okay, a lot of my practice has been focused on learning spaces and community spaces for students. Those have an incredible impact on students just because building spaces that people want to be in also helps building, also helps build community. Of course, interactions with students is so important, especially we all learned this a few years ago when we all went virtual. Now, important human interaction is to our psyche and even before that those spaces were impactful and I'd say even now that importance has increased tremendously. Sure, sure?
Skyler: So I mean, what is it that we we at least within our design and our architecture design, what are we looking to? or how do we enhance spaces where they, we want to build that community within those schools, like what are some maybe some ways or some clever I don't know techniques that we've used, things like those lines?
Kent: I think one of the most important things is to know that not every space is a great fit for every person, sure, and so I think variety is a huge design factor and influencer for those kinds of spaces. Some people want to sit in the lounge chair, like I'm sitting in now. Some people want to sit at a table spread all their books out, you know. So it's that you have to really have to cater to every space, or every every desired type of space, to attract people. What you find out quickly is it really falls the field of dreams sort of mantra in a lot of ways that if you build it, they will come, and so a lot of our student spaces. If you improve student space, if you first start to, you know, cut holes in 1970s buildings and start bringing in natural light, if you make these improvements and provide that variety I was talking about, they will come.
Skyler: So how do we create that variety? when we have maybe a bit of a limited space to work with, maybe whether that be based on size or just access that students might have to a space, how do we make sure that we have enough of that variety for those different?
Kent: types of. So that's a good question And sometimes the answer is we don't know. Sure, but the good news is that we've done enough of this in the last 10 or 15 years that we can kind of get an idea of what people are using and what they're not. In fact, we did a large learning commons project for the University of Iowa in 2013. It was completed And they actually surveyed They actually the learning spaces community at Iowa actually went around and surveyed what students were using what tech and what seeding and what posture. So, like, we had really good data on what was used and what wasn't, and that really was an amazing piece of data set to have to do the next few designs And that changes over time, obviously, but it's kind of trial and error.
Skyler: Right, definitely And I know I've talked to a couple of the other architects as well like the concept of very like client-based design, or even like deeper into that, not just like the immediate clients that we're working with the, you know, the CEOs or whoever's involved in the building or whatever the case management, but also talking to, like, obviously, the people that are going to be using that space on the day to day the students in this case. you know the and I know you would also mention beforehand the staff and faculty, because they're going to be using those spaces as well.
Kent: That's right. So, like we always think about, how can we make the students life better, and that's an important factor. But the same issues in higher ed for attracting students to your campus are the same for faculty and staff, and they actually spend a lot more time there than the students because they don't. They don't leave after they graduate, that's true. They're going to be there for a while, so it's important for them to have the kind of space they need to do their job and, and I think oftentimes they get overlooked Sure, oh, you know, well, it's just the staff. We don't care about the staff, but they're people too.
Skyler: Yeah absolutely, and I'm sure you know designing those spaces that are better for the staff and better for the students as well. That's really going to help with the minimizing the turnover rate, i would assume.
Kent: Yes, it does. I think a big change we've seen, especially in the last 10 years, is the faculty and staff wanted to be a lot more engaged with the students. I think if you go back, maybe 10 to 20 years ago, depending on the campus, the staff was sort of hidden away. You had to go find your professor, like for office hours right, you had to like go down long corridors and and know their office number, and now I feel like they want to be more, more front and center. Sure.
Skyler: So what are some ways that we've kind of designed spaces to help keep them front and center?
Kent: We know that the College of Education at University of Iowa is a great example. They had their faculty offices in the top of the tower, furthest away from any door. You had to very deliberately go to the dean's office to see the leadership of the College of Ed and the student services part of the College of Ed, and the new dean, dan Clay, realized immediately this is a problem and he's like we've got to be more accessible to our students and so we actually moved that office suite from the fourth floor to the second floor, built it around a community of learning spaces and common space. It even has a cafe. always helps, but now they're front and center and you don't have to go search for them anymore, which is great because you know they're going in and out, they're going to the same cafe. It increases the amount of chance encounters and sort of casual conversations and meetings that they wouldn't have had before.
Skyler: Awesome, very cool, very cool. What other spaces do we like to really hone in on or focus in on when it comes to helping to enhance this experience, both with the students and with the faculty?
Kent: Well, so one of the things we've done a tremendous amount of at all of our campuses that we've worked on is actual learning spaces, actual classrooms, and those look way different now than they did 20 years ago. So again, the same thing I talked about in the commons environment, where you need a variety. I think that also exists in the classroom, not only for the students posture, like do they want to sit at a high top table or a task chair or a tablet arm chair not that we see a lot of those anymore But it's also the it has to accommodate the different teaching styles. The pedagogy of the teacher or the professor, or their preferred pedagogy, really drives the design of the classroom, and what I mean by that is there's the active learning environment that we talk about so much now.
Kent: The whole hierarchy, the classroom's broken down So there isn't a front of the room anymore, right Right, and the instructor sort of milling about the space, you know, interacting with the groups that are collaborating together and sort of hearing what's going on. So that type of environment isn't for everybody. We know that. So we've done a lot of those rooms where they can flex from traditional to active learning, okay, okay.
Skyler: Yeah, definitely keeping it open based on the need, obviously, of both the teacher and the students and whatever's going to be taught in the classroom. Like, obviously there's going to be some that are going to have really special, very specific needs within that classroom because of whatever it is that's being taught. Like, i'm sure we've worked on some spaces where it's kind of like a shop environment, so that's going to be obviously really different than you know more of a classroom, right?
Kent: Exactly. And you know, at the end of the day, there's some things that still happen, that are very traditional, like testing. Yeah, even though it might happen on a laptop, the sort of the setup and the privacy concerns are the same. So there's some things that haven't changed for as many things that have.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely Jumping a little bit on the topic, but part of like, obviously, the experience of those that are using these higher education spaces And one of the biggest concerns I know a lot of them have been talking about is, like security and safety. I know we did an episode previously with David Brocces, one of our other architects, about, you know, designing schools and not prisons, but a lot of that was focused on sort of more like K-12 education spaces. When it comes to higher ed, are there things that we do to sort of enhance that sense of safety?
Kent: within those spaces. Sadly, you know this is in the context of many things. The higher ed communities no stranger to violence on campus. Even here in Iowa, if you Google the 90s and the University of Iowa, they certainly had an incident that which has influenced their design and their thoughts toward security from from you know for the last 30 years, honestly, right.
Kent: So yeah, we don't do any classroom spaces now that don't have an emergency lockdown button. Sure, in instance that is close to the instructor station. We talk about visibility. They'd rather. You know, the higher ed is kind of there, kind of on the cutting edge of, like you know, thoughts on this, and I feel like that there's that double edge sort of the visibility seen out of the classroom versus people being able to see you or shoot at you, and I think they've decided that being able to see out is a more powerful thing than being able to see in right, which lends itself to a more desirable space from a, from an architectural and maybe a healthy. You know, daily space is better than than not, but we, it's definitely something we talk about.
Skyler: Yeah.
Kent: And, and it's just, that's just, that's just reality.
Skyler: Sure, It is unfortunate, obviously, And I feel like every every space is going to be a little bit different in what it needs and what you know is something that can be integrated into it, of course.
Kent: And I think the higher ed is unique in that they try to realize that this is, you know, we don't want to overreact to something Sure, but we don't want to underreact to something Right, right. So I feel like there's been a nice happy medium there. Okay, awesome.
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Skyler: To learn more about our available positions, visit the careers page at cmbaarchitectscom and apply to join the CMBA team. When it comes to another major topic that I know that kind of comes up, which is student sort of mental health, within that, And when it comes to architecture and design, there's a lot of features and things that we can add to the spaces that will essentially affect sort of those that use that space there. you know, whether that be the coloring or it could be. you know, like you mentioned the sun coming in, sunlight, natural sunlight. What other ways do we design spaces to kind of help with that? It's somewhat mental health, but also just generally like the enjoyment of the space aesthetically speaking.
Kent: Well, I think the first thing that I would say is that you want to make the space really accessible to everyone. So universal design is designed for everyone. So when we talk about like accessibility, you know, we often talk about.
Kent: We think about people that are in wheelchairs or on crutches or you know, low sight, low sighted people, but I really feel like good design is universal design, where we're designing it for everybody all at the same time, and it sure happens to work for everybody. To me, that's ideal, can always do it. It's great when we can, but what that helps with is, you know it makes the buildings easier to use. You can find your way around. You don't have to ask, you know, people for help, because people are really sensitive about though, gosh, they want to do this on their own or they're afraid to ask for help. So you want to make things obvious and accessible, and I think that's the first thing. Obviously, nobody likes caves. I think that's been well documented that sunlight is really healthy for us.
Kent: And you know all the other stuff. Ventilation, you know we're not mechanical engineers but we're keenly aware that you know working in, especially working in building renovations, as old buildings they might not have the ventilation error that a newer building might have. And you know we don't, as humans don't react very well to be in an environment where you have tons of CO2, right. It makes us sleepy and tired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and irritable.
Kent: So that's one thing from an environmental point of view. The other thing would be you know I think again back to variety If you went in a Stanley Kubrick white box. I don't think that does very good things about it.
Speaker 3: It's so healthy Not at all.
Kent: It's really important Okay.
Skyler: Now you kind of mentioned, like with the ventilation systems, with, like, older buildings and things like that. So a lot of these college campuses they'll brag about, you know, we've been around for a hundred plus years or whatever And we're going to have buildings there that have been around for about that long. How do we go in and redesign these spaces that have? I mean, you'd almost be better off sometimes, like plowing the whole thing down and just restarting from zero, or how do we do that?
Kent: Yeah, you have to be selective. We've worked in buildings that are over a hundred years old. I think we did some renovations at both Iowa State and the University of Iowa buildings that are well over a hundred years old, and I think it's interesting. The mechanical challenges definitely have to be dealt with. Like most of those buildings were built before air conditioning was invented. So you know those problems, we know how to solve those, we know where to hide the ductwork and not destroy the historic fabric of the building. It can be done.
Kent: The great thing about a lot of these old buildings is they have incredibly high floor to floor heights because of the natural ventilation. Oh, okay, from days in the past. So some of it's not as bad as some of the things that were maybe built in the 60s and 70s. Sure, those are the buildings that maybe the wrecking ball shouldn't spare. But I mean, it's kind of a decision When do you make that decision? when do you save it and when you don't? And I think that's there's a lot of factors in that. Nostalgia is always a huge one To people remember this building, to people remember proposing to their spouse in front of this building. That's a huge factor. And the other one is can we actually make it work for something that can be used today?
Skyler: Right, Is it kind of worth all the what's going to have to go into it versus what's it worth to just plow it down and start over almost Right.
Kent: And usually the answer is that you can reuse it. But a lot of times it's hard to take a building that was used to store library books a stack area of a library with lots of columns and low ceilings to make that into anything, Even though we've done that before too.
Skyler: Yeah, no, that makes sense. A lot of people always kind of want to get some insight, when it comes to the experts, on what you think we might be looking at 10 years down the road or in the future when it comes to designing for higher education spaces. It's not always possible to really predict the future per se, but do you have any?
Kent: It's fun to try.
Skyler: It's fun to try Skyler, it's fun to try. Yeah. Do you have any insights, any thoughts about what we might be looking at as we move down the road?
Kent: So the one thing that we'll say is that we probably won't be able to. But one thing that we do actually focus on that I think has an impact is think about the building that you're designing, especially if you're doing one from scratch. How can we come up with a system of columns and floor heights and things that can be easily modified to be used for something else? I think there was a time when we got, you know, really into like laying columns out that would work with an office grid. Oh, and when was the last time we designed an office building with offices? Yeah, that concept's kind of gone away. So it's like it's better to think about the building framework as a flexible thing that can be molded into something else easily. Sure, the one thing that makes me think about that is you know, we talk about sustainability It takes a lot of energy to build a building.
Speaker 3: Oh, very much.
Kent: And if you can do that in 10 to 15 or 20 years and it can be easily molded into something else, you've saved a lot of energy and embodied energy in building a building. Yeah, Probably not as much as the energy use of the building over its life, but a significant amount of energy, absolutely, absolutely.
Skyler: And then, kind of on the opposing side of that, a little bit of past reflection having come out and into a post-COVID world that's changed so much about everything, even outside of higher ed, but specifically within a higher ed and higher ed design going forward. what are we looking at as far as how that's kind of left an impact with a lot of the like, whether that be within remote spaces or remote teaching things along those lines.
Kent: That's a really good question And I think it's maybe too soon to tell Sure, but observations so far. I think, just like we have kind of a work expectation Not to be able to work whenever and however we're in the world, we want as long as we can get Wi-Fi The students have the same thing with education, right. They don't feel the need to go sit in a classroom and listen to someone talk to them because they can watch them on YouTube, right, right, that's not going to change. I don't think that part of higher ed's going to change back. The thing that could possibly change is, again, the requirement to do it. Are people going to make people come to lectures? You start hearing about it. Players are saying we're going to make our own place come back to work. It's like I feel like some of this stuff is never going to be the same. We're not coming back Because if a student has a choice and we say that's all in-person learning, i'm going to go, i'll go somewhere else, maybe, exactly.
Kent: I'll go sit in my room and I'll Right. I think the flexibility is never going away.
Skyler: Okay, if we have that flexibility and it's not going to go away, what does that mean for the spaces that we're designing? Are they going to shrink, are they?
Kent: going to. That's a good point. We're doing two lecture hall renovations right now By lecture halls. if you followed higher ed in the past, you realize the size of the lecture hall shrunk significantly. These were rooms for around 100 people. They're smaller by major university standards but they're still lecture style. They're designed so someone could be watching the live stream or in the classroom and get the same experience. That's whiteboard cameras, that's cameras of the actual room. seeing people ask questions. It's interesting.
Skyler: I was just going to say yeah, from a content creator standpoint, i mean that seems kind of logical to design the room almost for the purpose of capturing the lecture content-wise and being able to put it out so that students that aren't using that space can still get the information or get the lecture, whatever the case.
Kent: Just like the technology, for everything is quickly evolved. We used to design these little studio spaces for the professors to go into to record their classes.
Kent: I think at Iowa they called them the One Touch Studio where they could just go into there and put their thumb drive into the machine and sit there in the camera and everything was all set up for them. Now people are doing this with their laptop, honestly recording them through Zoom and putting them out there. The whole need for something that popped up has gone away and we're renovating those spaces into something else.
Skyler: Yeah, i mean, look at us.
Speaker 3: We're inside of a small office room with two microphones in a laptop.
Skyler: Exactly, awesome, awesome. Well, that's really everything that I had. I mean, if there was anything that you wanted to close out with as far as discussion goes, but-.
Kent: No, i mean I'm excited to talk about anything. Oh, okay If it involves IRED.
Skyler: Right.
Kent: Right After how many years?
Skyler: Yeah, Yeah, No, I imagine yeah, There's probably. I mean, you could probably we could do 20 podcast episodes at the very least.
Kent: Yes.
Skyler: We might need to, in fact, in the future, that's fine. Yeah, we'll do some breakdowns, we'll do. We'll come up with 20 different topics.
Kent: Sounds great.
Skyler: Well, kent, seriously, it's been awesome having you on the show. I really appreciate you coming here and sharing your expertise within IRED and design and architecture. Thanks, thanks, skyler. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you as well for listening. This has been another episode of Laying the Foundation. You can, of course, find us on Spotify, google Podcasts, apple Podcasts and everywhere else that podcasts can be found. You can check us out on our website at cmbaarchitectscom. You can see a lot of the projects that we've worked on in the past, including projects that Kent has been a part of. Of course, you can always check us out on social media, whether that be Facebook, instagram, twitter or LinkedIn. Once again, thank you all for listening. This has been another episode of Laying the Foundation.
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June 1, 2023