Through their educational journey, students undergo significant changes as their cognitive abilities magnify at each grade level. Learning spaces change and develop, much as the brain does. This idea accommodates the academic development of children and improves the understandings of cognition. As young learners move through elementary grades the classrooms become more structured, from shared rolling tables to individual desks. To implement progressive 21st Century learning, forward-thinking schools are working alongside architects to develop innovative design methods that enable collaboration and flexibility of space. Such efforts have found a solution in “learning hubs,” a grouping of classrooms around a centralized area, where kids work together, and teachers join in an exchange of resources. Lubbock Cooper Independent School District (LCISD) in Texas implements these findings throughout their K-12 campuses with one common goal: the success of all students.
For its client Fletcher Jones, one of the most successful luxury auto dealers in the United States, Gensler used its multidisciplinary design approach to integrate branding and architecture into a memorable customer experience in Ontario, California.
It takes a lot of people to make up Edmunds.com, the automotive networking and shopping giant. In 2016, Edmunds moved all those people into a new office in Santa Monica, CA, to give them a better, more collaborative, more enjoyable place to work. Architects M+M Creative Studio designed a vast flowing space with a polished industrial aesthetic heavy on car culture and a wealth of collaborative spaces. They integrated outdoor courtyards inside by making the office into a “convertible” with NanaWall opening glass walls. The result is an award-winning business space where people love to come to work.
British Columbia has spectacular views of the Canadian Cascades and the inlets that surround it and Burnaby, a city just east of Vancouver, undulates over hills that reach 1,200 feet high. One of its residences, planted on top of one of these hills, offers big views of the Vancouver skyline and the majestic coastal ranges. For the homeowners, the Fedukes, making those views an integral part of their residence was important. So much so, they chose to blur the lines between outdoor and indoor living.
