Education Design

How can we better meet the needs of a growing number of communities that are increasingly diverse? Our practice breaks age-old paradigms about the design of learning environments. Each engagement process is uniquely designed to elicit many voices from the community and pin-point the needs and priorities they have for their spaces. Developing and cultivating relationships with a meaningful presence in each community fosters belonging. That process must be inclusive, and always moves at the speed of trust. We leverage our Research Center and expertise in UDL to design this process with the communities we serve.

How do we lower the barriers for first generation and underrepresented college students? Multistudio constantly considers new types of spaces and programs to meet the unique needs of every student, especially because so many students are currently left out by contemporary collegiate planning and design paradigms. A key premise in our approach is that importance of understanding factors that truly influence outcomes, which leads to our investment in learning research.

We know through our research that the vitality of college and university campuses, K-12 school districts, and even individual school facilities will largely be determined by their fiscal impact on already constrained budgets. Putting this conversation at the heart of the design process provides a pathway toward a sustainable business model that will ultimately allow teaching and learning to remain front and center. In combination with our efforts to reduce energy consumption, carbon emissions, and water use, we believe sustainability is more holistic. Comprehensive sustainability, fundamentally enhances short and long-term operations for our clients.

With state and federal funding of our education system in a dire condition, the healthy operations of schools, districts and campuses is under immense financial pressure. Now more than ever, the sustainability of our education system is contingent on strategic planning and management of long-term operations and maintenance. Multistudio not only looks at the environmental impact of our projects, but also addressing the client’s bottom line. Designing high performance facilities is good for clients’ budgets, and it’s good for the health and wellness of the students.

Clinical research has long provided strong evidence that prolonged exposure to psychological stress can lead to the development of behavioral problems and psychiatric illness, especially depression and anxiety. Placing student physical and mental wellness at the center of design is a first step in creating healthier students and healthier communities. The result is stronger academic performance, improved student retention, and healthy personal growth.

Learn how we helped put mental health at the forefront at KCU Joplin Campus with a resilient and biophilic design.

Our Research Center is exploring the future of learning to unlock connections between users and analyze how they play out in a designed space. Led by Multistudio’s Lead Researcher and award-winning master teacher, our Research Center coordinates an international team of collaborators – designers, architects, and scholars – to embed evidence-driven design into every one of our projects.

Our research looks to the future of education to see the needs of teaching the next generation. Technological innovations and societal disruptions alike open new opportunities to how we can provide education. Our research looks at many facets including variabilities in how humans learn, teacher engagement and retention, how space influences messaging to various social identity groups, and more.

We study leading instructional approaches to better design learning spaces that enhance teaching outcomes and sustain institutional initiatives. Engaging, effective pedagogies, like those embracing active learning, are at their best in collaborative and flexible environments.

Discover more about how our research is revealing these designs boost enrollment and student success.

Education environments don’t need to rely on traditional models of classrooms and test scores. Instead, they should encourage productive student/employee behaviors, create self-directed learners, and teach relevant and transferable work skills. Multistudio bridges the gap in the education-work continuum by using research, pedagogy, and space design strategies to help clients prepare today’s students, employees, and employers for the rapidly evolving world of work.

Learn how Missouri Innovation Campus is rethinking traditional models to equip students with better skills, allowing them to graduate faster, and with less debt.

Our commitment to connect students to real-world opportunities extends to curriculum development, teaching, professional development, and follow-up research supporting Client Connected Projects and Real-World Learning. This work directly impacts the students and schools we engage and offers additional insight to our work by integrating successful client-connected opportunities within the school environments we design.