EPISODE 311 with Patricia Culley
April 22, 2026
Overview:
What if the spaces we design for learning could speak to every student who walks through the door?
In this episode, Mark Barga sits down with Patricia Culley, Principal at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, to explore what happens when an architect brings nearly two decades of diverse design experience to the challenge of reimagining K–12 learning environments. From her circuitous path through higher education and cultural institutions to championing outdoor classrooms and biophilic design, Patricia shares how great school architecture isn’t about imposing a vision, it’s about listening, iterating, and creating spaces flexible enough to become whatever students and teachers need them to be.
Meet Our Guest:
Patricia Culley is a principal with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, an award-winning national architecture firm that excels in celebrating the spirit of place. Her approach to architecture centers on the balance between thoughtful, community-driven design and environmental consciousness. Patricia is a sustainability leader within BCJ and an active voice within the industry.
Watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHXKWidPeFMTakeaways:
- The design process is iterative, not prescriptive: Great architects don’t arrive with the answer on day one. They guide clients through many rounds of exploration, often turning initial assumptions on their head before arriving at something that truly reflects the community’s values
- Stakeholder diversity is your greatest design asset: Surveys, workshops, and hands-on engagement tools serve different audiences differently. The key is building a process that captures meaningful input from faculty, administrators, students, and the broader community, not just the loudest voices in the room
- K–12 owners often don’t know how to use space as a tool—yet: Unlike higher ed clients who come in with clear needs, K–12 educators sometimes need help seeing how the built environment can actively support pedagogy; the architect’s job is to create a shell flexible enough that teachers can make it their own once they’re in it
- Nature is the great equalizer: Outdoor learning environments aren’t an amenity. They level the playing field across abilities, backgrounds, and learning styles, and biophilic design principles belong in every school conversation from day one
- Variety sparks innovation—even for the firm itself: BCJ’s intentional choice to stay a generalist practice means lessons from residential intimacy, healthcare, and cultural institutions all cross-pollinate into how they think about school design, because at the core, every typology is about how humans interact with the built environment
- Flexibility is the ultimate future-proofing strategy: For projects that span fifteen-plus years from visioning to ribbon-cutting, opinions will change, leadership will turn over, and priorities will shift. Building adaptability into both the physical design and the process itself is the only way to stay aligned with the community’s evolving needs
The Host:
Connect with co-host, Mark Barga, Ed.D:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-barga-edd-a94744272/
Learn More About Kay-Twelve:
Website: http://kay-twelve.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kay-twelve-com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kay_twelve/
Episode 311 of the Better Learning Podcast
Kevin Stoller is the host of the Better Learning Podcast and Co-Founder of Kay-Twelve, a national leader for educational furniture. Learn more about creating better learning environments at www.Kay-Twelve.com.
Our Partners:
For more information on our partners:
Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) – https://www.a4le.org/
Education Leaders’ Organization – https://www.ed-leaders.org/
Second Class Foundation – https://secondclassfoundation.org/
EDmarket – https://www.edmarket.org/
Catapult @ Penn GSE – https://catapult.gse.upenn.edu/
Read Transcript:
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Mark Barga: Hello, everybody.
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Welcome to the Better Learning Podcast.
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We’re here with Patricia Culley in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Patricia, thank you so much for joining us.
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Patricia Culley: Thanks, Mark.
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Mark Barga: Why don’t we get started with you sharing with our audience a little bit about your professional background?
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Patricia Culley: Well, again, my name is Patricia Culley.
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I’m a principal with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
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I’ve been with the practice for about nineteen years, so the large portion of my professional career.
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Um, our practice is about a hundred people, um, across five dIfferent offices, and, um, we focus on work of many different typologies, including K-12.
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Mark Barga: Wonderful.
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What got you specifically interested in educational architecture?
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Patricia Culley: My interest in educational architecture was a little bit circuitous, was reflective of the diversity of work that we do within this practice.
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Early in my career, I started work in higher ed and in higher education, and, um, while it did have an educational component to it, m-maybe more specialized in certain fields like engineering and science.
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From there, I worked on a cultural project, which was really sort of the precursor into K-12, uh, educational projects for me personally, um, at the practice.
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That cultural institution focused on environmental education for, um, many different, um, demographics and different people within the community, both sort of early childhood all the way through adult learners.
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So really kind of interesting diversity of, um, users for that project.
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What was most interesting to me was thinking about space to support, uh, K-12 users, and from that time, I’ve since worked on a variety of projects in K-12, both at the sort of secondary education level as well as early childhood.
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Mark Barga: Very interesting.
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You’ve worked with a great many school clients, right?
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Across many different domains: early childhood, K-12, higher education.
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In our experience, it seems that oftentimes architects and school leaders don’t always speak the same language, right?
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They have different life experiences and different vantage points from which they think about school life and school dynamics.
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How do you, as a guide for folks in the modernization or construction process, how do you bridge that gap and get folks to sort of speak the same language?
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Patricia Culley: I would say Our that we design,
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really helps to navigate people, into visualizing the design process.
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So, oftentimes our clients, whether they are K-12 or even residential clients, or different typologies, they don’t have a ton of ex-experience in the design and construction of buildings.
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So no matter what the client is, the way that we do our process is to help them sort of visualize what the space will be.
00:03:03.808 –> 00:03:18.165
Our, um, meaning that we never come to a client first thing and say, “This is what the design is going to to be.” We always bring them into a process, and it takes quite a lot of time to help hold their hand and pull them through that iterative process.
00:03:18.545 –> 00:03:33.825
And sometimes an initial idea or initial concept might be super relevant, but you have to go through many iterations with them, even turning things on its head to help them see what alternatives and other options are available.
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And then we might come back to that initial concept, or it might develop into something that is much more organic, um, and developed from that process of working very closely with the client.
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So that’s why each of our, projects are so unique and such a reflection of the client’s values, because of the iterative process that we do.
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Mark Barga: So many of your clients who you’ve worked with, they’re thinking about the student experience, right?
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They’re thinking about how are students going to experience the space, but they themselves are adults and seasoned professionals in many ways.
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How do you balance what you anticipate as a student experience in a space with the school leaders or your clients’ view of what they think the space will be used for?
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Patricia Culley: I think it’s a really, um, great question, and the word balance is an important part of that question.
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You need to be able to, navigate the information from many different stakeholders, both sort of the faculty, um, and the administrative, uh, staff of the school, school district, as well as who the users are going to to be, what the students want.
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And so having that diversity of stakeholder information is really important, and that’s the best way that we help to navigate, different input.
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And, you know, we have different tools that we use to engage stakeholders, um, depending on, how broad that stakeholder group is.
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So some of the tools that we use include surveys.
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Um, surveys are a really great tool when you have a very large stakeholder group and you want to collect, information from many different people.
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Um, you have to be really careful about the types of questions that you ask in a survey, how long that survey is going to to be.
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You really want to create prompts that give you good information to inform the design process.
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Um, another tool that we use, of course, stakeholder engagement could be workshops.
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Um, one thing that we found is, not everyone is familiar with a workshop type of process, and so the way that we set up those workshops has to be engaging enough so that if you’re not familiar with it, you can still provide really valuable feedback.
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One of the ways that we do that is by having, prompts and, um, props in those workshops to collect feedback.
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Some people we know are visual, um, and sort of more graphic-oriented.
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Some people, like to write down, uh, their ideas, and so being able to have enough props to collect really great feedback is an, an important part of that stakeholder engagement.
00:06:02.496 –> 00:06:21.247
So back to your initial question of how do you align sort of the, the vision of what maybe the adult, and the sort of faculty administration might think about
education spaces versus the students, it’s making sure that you collect enough feedback from that variety and diversity of stakeholders to help inform the design.
00:06:21.997 –> 00:06:25.877
Mark Barga: Which I think contributes to your ability to bridge the language gap, right?
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Sometimes between the different constituencies, for sure.
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So there’s many needles to thread, it sounds like.
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Yeah.
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and actually following up on that, what have your experiences been or what insights might you share in terms of the contrast or perhaps similarities between working with
K-12, you know, constituents as far as focus groups or design charrettes or workshops or surveys and higher education, as I know you serve both educational clientele.
00:06:51.533 –> 00:07:07.747
Patricia Culley: Yeah, I would say, um, this isn’t always the case, but often we find that in higher education, people have a better
understanding of what their needs really are, from the space and how to use the space as a tool to help them do their research, their work.
00:07:08.154 –> 00:07:27.741
and m-maybe less so in K-12 design, um, the space may not be as primary a tool to help facilitate, whether it’s the education or, whatever it is, Understanding how the space can be used as part of the education process is different in K-12 design.
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And sometimes what we find is that owners and educators don’t understand how to use the space to help inform their, um, education process.
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So, we have to be a lot more flexible, in the way that we do K-12 design to give people an opportunity, almost like create a shell, um, for them to– once that they’re in the space, they can make it their own, and really start to visualize how to use it well.
00:07:53.053 –> 00:07:53.233
Mark Barga: If
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I may, I might follow up on, those insights with a question about educators not always understanding how to use this space as a catalyst
for, you know, transformation or to accelerate learning or to, you know, promote other types of outcomes that they’re aspiring towards.
00:08:10.704 –> 00:08:21.534
Can you say a little bit more about experiences, not specifically, but places where you’ve seen school clients make the investment in space but not really know how to use the space?
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Patricia Culley: So one example is at a nonprofit school, that I worked with here in Pittsburgh.
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And for this school, the project that we created was an eighth-grade classroom.
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Um, it was a very small standalone building that, served, about twenty-five students.
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And what’s interesting about this project, it’s very different from your typical sort of K-12, uh, public school project.
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what was most interesting is that, you know, Waldorf education is very different than public school education.
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It’s very much about giving students the opportunity to be part of the learning process.
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And in that instance, what we did with that design was create little nooks and little crannies in the building just as places for opportunity for something to happen, whether it is a
collaboration or whether it is just two kids coming together and really trying to imagine and be creative and providing those nooks and crannies we knew was important, but we couldn’t understand
exactly, how it would, you know, impact the students and what sort of creativity, just giving them the opportunity to be creative so that they can, really do something imaginative there.
00:09:40.379 –> 00:09:48.365
So, through our design process, we knew that we wanted these different program elements, but, we weren’t sure how it would end up.
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We just knew that it would be places for imagination.
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Mark Barga: Most schools who are interested in revolutionizing or advancing their district goals talk about objectives like collaboration and community and equity and belonging.
00:10:04.806 –> 00:10:13.566
And we know that many of these outcomes are delivered at the level of classroom, at the level of school culture, at the level of curriculum and programming.
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But I think behind that, there’s a layer of school design that folks should pay attention to as they’re interested in, you know, many of those metrics which really matter for student experiences.
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What can you share with our audience about how school design can contribute to some of those non-academic but really important metrics like connection, belonging, equity?
00:10:36.774 –> 00:10:43.978
Patricia Culley: I would start by saying that we need to recognize that not everyone is a carbon copy of everyone else.
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Everyone’s different.
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Everyone has different needs.
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They have different ways of learning.
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And so recognizing that there is a difference in people, and that people are diverse and have different needs and have different wants is the first step to being able to then have that inform the design process.
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So recognizing that difference is number one.
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And then once you recognize the difference, you can say, “Okay, well, how could I accommodate, certain parts of that community? Can I do that through the furniture?” Something as simple as furniture.
00:11:16.557 –> 00:11:31.181
Can I have a variety of furniture to, um, help facilitate learning for people who maybe want to be standing when they’re learning, or people who want to have soft seating, or people who learn in different ways, either in formal spaces or informal spaces?
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So it could be done through furniture.
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It could be done through a variety of spaces that we provide programmatically within, um, a building.
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So you could have formal spaces and informal spaces.
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You could have those more formal learning environments, which are the classrooms, but then you could have those flex spaces or project spaces that
give people an opportunity who maybe want to learn differently, um, or who have different needs physically or socially, to learn in a different mode.
00:11:58.221 –> 00:12:04.901
So there are different ways we can do that, again, whether it is through furniture, whether it is programmatically.
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Sometimes we find that, you know, people really learn better when they’re more surrounded with nature.
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And so, one of the things that we’ve been seeing more is providing outdoor learning opportunities.
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And what I’ve learned through my experience is that nature is the great equalizer.
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Everyone can experience nature in their own way.
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Um, no matter your ability, no matter your, no matter your background, whatever you bring to it, nature is that great equalizer.
00:12:29.395 –> 00:12:36.733
So providing opportunities to have outdoor education areas does help to provide that equity, in the learning environment.
00:12:37.428 –> 00:12:46.308
Mark Barga: And that could relate to things like transference of light, acoustics, you know, the space within corridors for– to promote movement.
00:12:46.308 –> 00:12:53.338
So the built environment, whether it’s furniture or architecture, really does communicate assumptions about the people who are in those spaces.
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You know, when we work with schools at K-12, it’s not just about furniture design, it’s about impact.
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Our radically student-centered approach puts students at the center of every decision.
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From that first conversation to the final walkthrough, we’re focused on creating spaces that actually work for the kids.
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Teachers and the community.
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So if you’re looking to do more than just check a box on your next project, let’s talk Visit k12.com.
00:13:21.042 –> 00:13:22.392
That’s kaytwe1ve.com
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and see how we’re helping schools transform learning one student at a time.
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Because at K-12 it’s not just about projects and furniture, it’s about purpose.
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Mark Barga: I’m interested in learning more about projects you’ve worked on or experiences you’ve had in architecture where you’ve been one of the initial guides for a district, right?
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As they’ve started to begin this process.
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What does it look like when a client or a district really embraces this idea of changing space as a way to change educational trajectory?
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Because I think that we regularly reduce a lot of that to educational programming, curriculum, instruction, internal school organizational dynamics.
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But changing a campus, changing a building can really be a catalyst.
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Can you share a little bit about what you think your highest hopes are or the best case scenario might be when you’re guiding a client on this journey?
00:14:31.894 –> 00:14:37.031
Patricia Culley: So I’ve been very fortunate to work with owners and educators who are innovators in their own right.
00:14:37.320 –> 00:14:48.240
Working with owners who really focus on environmental education and understand the value of using the built environment to support a much larger educational program within the natural environment.
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Working with nonprofit groups at the Waldorf school who already think about education differently and understand the value of what a space can provide for a student to help nurture them, um, in their learning experience over time.
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Um, so space is very important when it comes to Waldorf education.
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Even color and, um, how a space feels is very important.
00:15:12.676 –> 00:15:30.122
And even with the public school districts that I’ve worked with and independent schools, again, innovators in their own right, being open to bring in
different stakeholders to help inform the design process in a way that might change their initial thinking about how the design might need to happen.
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But being willing to bring those stakeholders in and listen to those voices, um, again, is a great opportunity to, um, again, is a great way to, um, think about how the space might be in the future.
00:15:46.210 –> 00:15:52.200
So I’ve been fortunate that I didn’t have to be the one to help push that process.
00:15:52.200 –> 00:15:58.532
I’ve guided it a little bit, but working with exceptional owners has been something that I’ve been very fortunate to have in my career.
00:15:59.285 –> 00:16:01.005
Mark Barga: If I may follow up on that a little bit.
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I’m also interested in the, the opposite question, right?
00:16:04.565 –> 00:16:07.535
Which is in your journey, right?
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Designing schools and guiding, you know, owners through this process, what words of advice might you offer as far as maybe some of the
decision points that come up along the way that can derail or actually be misaligned with their, you know, v-with their vision and their goals?
00:16:27.605 –> 00:16:39.595
What are some of the cautionary tales or cautionary notes you might share with our audience of architects and school leaders specifically, as far as, you know, how to ensure true alignment and sort of, you know, a shared mission?
00:16:40.017 –> 00:16:45.253
Patricia Culley: It’s an interesting question because, it’s different depending on the project.
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I’ll give you an example.
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In our public school district project, it’s a project that has been– that started visioning fifteen years ago.
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We started design about five years ago, and the project will be going into construction soon.
00:17:01.665 –> 00:17:04.350
It won’t be completed for another, two to three years.
00:17:04.350 –> 00:17:11.180
So just the duration of the visioning through the construction of that project is such a long timeframe.
00:17:11.548 –> 00:17:31.924
So with that project, obviously it’s gone through the process of visioning through design and even going into construction for such a long duration
for, for already fifteen years that, um, the most important thing is to be flexible because, um, you can’t anticipate everything, for the future.
00:17:32.224 –> 00:17:42.344
You need to be flexible and adaptable, and so many people have informed that design process, and opinions change, just over the duration of the visioning through design and construction, opinions have changed.
00:17:42.344 –> 00:17:50.260
And so the most important thing is to be flexible and to be open to listen to those opinions, especially for projects of such long duration.
00:17:50.533 –> 00:17:50.903
Mark Barga: I like it.
00:17:51.291 –> 00:18:16.912
So I’m in just a little bit more about your background and how you’ve developed your own philosophy and approach to architecture, and I’m wondering if there’s anything in particular about your personal background as
a, as a student, as someone who’s been in school a lot, and also as a mother, um, of three students in school and, and how their experiences maybe have informed or added some texture to the way you approach your work.
00:18:17.072 –> 00:18:22.702
What have you learned from both your first-person experiences but also your experiences of watching your children in school?
00:18:23.440 –> 00:18:32.240
Patricia Culley: Yeah, it’s an interesting question as a mother of kids who are in middle school and high school and had to go through, for instance, education during the pandemic.
00:18:32.240 –> 00:18:36.904
A completely different, um, experience than what I had growing up.
00:18:37.377 –> 00:18:43.764
My kids the interesting opportunity to be part of a design process, actually.
00:18:44.073 –> 00:18:50.170
In my school district, there was a new middle school that was built that, um, some of my kids were able to be part of.
00:18:50.570 –> 00:19:05.203
And in the process of that design, that was a different, uh, architecture firm who developed that, but they brought in the, uh, children’s museum, consultants from the children’s museum here in Pittsburgh to help inform the design of that project.
00:19:05.733 –> 00:19:17.719
And now that it’s built, and I have two of my kids who’ve been in that school, they love the components of the project that were informed by that children’s museum consultant.
00:19:18.033 –> 00:19:42.836
There’s a big spiral ramp within the building, and my kids just love it because they think, “Hey, this is so different from my elementary school. It really looks like the design of this
building was informed by what the kids really want.” So my kids have benefited from a really strong design process to help improve the learning environment for, for middle school students.
00:19:43.086 –> 00:19:49.923
And I would love, as an architect and as a mother, I’d love to think that I provide that to my clients as well.
00:19:50.273 –> 00:20:08.744
Um, I’m always trying to learn from my clients, we go back to the projects that we’ve completed and talk to the students and talk to the faculty, figure
out what has worked, figure out, um, what things might have changed, and take that information, um, and feedback to help inform the next design that we do.
00:20:09.854 –> 00:20:17.898
Curiously, I did ask two of my kids, if they had the ability to design a classroom in any way that they wanted, how would they do it?
00:20:18.210 –> 00:20:36.412
My one middle school child said, “It would be a big open room with just grass on the floor, and there wouldn’t be any walls, and we would just be
having fun.” And I think in his mind, he thought, “Oh, we would just be playing.” The way that I interpreted it, though, is that learning should be fun.
00:20:36.412 –> 00:20:37.462
Learning should be play.
00:20:37.492 –> 00:20:42.842
Learning should be the way that you engage with your environment, and it should be life.
00:20:43.242 –> 00:20:46.122
It shouldn’t be separate from living.
00:20:46.522 –> 00:20:50.582
So I loved that example that he gave of just learning should be play.
00:20:51.772 –> 00:20:52.452
Mark Barga: That’s phenomenal.
00:20:52.482 –> 00:20:55.372
And he’s also interested in biophilic design, apparently.
00:20:56.194 –> 00:21:04.994
Many schools and many of our listeners are folks who are going to be exploring the future of, you know, entering their own modernization journey, right?
00:21:04.994 –> 00:21:08.264
So these are folks who maybe are just thinking about interior design.
00:21:08.264 –> 00:21:14.394
They’re going to redo paint and finishes and get new furniture to try to, you know, serve as a catalyst for change.
00:21:14.674 –> 00:21:15.994
They may be building an addition.
00:21:16.184 –> 00:21:17.974
They may be changing the internal footprint.
00:21:18.164 –> 00:21:19.264
They may be building a new school.
00:21:19.650 –> 00:21:28.968
What final advice, big takeaway advice would you offer to folks who are listening and curious about this journey ahead?
00:21:29.398 –> 00:21:32.438
What would you recommend them to, to do at the very beginning?
00:21:33.236 –> 00:21:38.876
Patricia Culley: My recommendation is to be open to the design process.
00:21:39.429 –> 00:21:51.181
Everyone comes to the design process with preconceptions and, ideas about what it will be and what a space might need or what, or what a space might look like.
00:21:51.661 –> 00:21:59.591
The design process gives you the opportunity to visualize something that is far different than what your initial assumptions were.
00:22:00.241 –> 00:22:07.331
And there are so many tools that architects have to be able to inform that design process and help you visualize things.
00:22:07.361 –> 00:22:17.450
I, for one, I’m a visual person, so I need visual tools and visual cues to help imagine what space can really be and how it can be part of the learning experience.
00:22:18.140 –> 00:22:28.790
So my recommendation, again, is to be open to the design process, understand the value of what the design process brings, and how it can enhance your learning environment.
00:22:29.530 –> 00:22:37.570
Mark Barga: And there’s something behind that which is… And I think for educators, I speak as one personally, is this idea of vulnerability, right?
00:22:37.610 –> 00:22:46.870
I mean, you do have to enter that process with a sense of curiosity and vulnerability about what you might learn or what assumptions you may challenge and what discoveries lie ahead.
00:22:47.370 –> 00:22:59.630
So I think that’s a really interesting way to help people prepare for that journey, is to be open, know that you will find challenges to your beliefs, and there are questions that maybe you haven’t considered that require investigation.
00:22:59.913 –> 00:23:02.653
So BCJ is a generalist architecture practice.
00:23:02.653 –> 00:23:07.413
You work across commercial, residential, healthcare, education, K-12, and higher ed.
00:23:07.853 –> 00:23:22.593
Curious, internally, as far as your professional dynamics within the, within the firm, how does being a generalist practice contribute, maybe in surprising ways, to great approaches and perspectives on school design?
00:23:22.995 –> 00:23:24.225
Patricia Culley: So that’s a great question.
00:23:24.225 –> 00:23:36.765
We’re– BCJ is very intentionally a generalist practice, and the reason is because it ties very closely to our ethos of variety sparks innovation in our design process.
00:23:37.255 –> 00:23:57.015
We intentionally work on projects of many different typologies because what that allows us to do is be specialists in certain programs, but
generalists in our ability to create a built environment that is really humane and focuses on how people interact with the built environment.
00:23:57.515 –> 00:24:18.035
So the work that we do at the residential scale, um, is so, so intimate with the built environment and all of that information informs then how we do higher ed
buildings, where you have a lot of people in very large space, but making them feel comfortable in that space, making it feel like an extension of themselves.
00:24:18.093 –> 00:24:41.833
So all of these different typologies absolutely inform, um, each other and allow us to focus on what we value most is how humans interact with the built
environment, how to create spaces that help, um, foster collaboration, that help spark innovation, in a way that allows people to focus on what they do best.
00:24:42.453 –> 00:24:44.763
Mark Barga: Patricia Culley, thank you so much for your time.
00:24:44.803 –> 00:24:45.993
It’s been a great conversation.
00:24:45.993 –> 00:24:47.093
I look forward to speaking to you again.
00:24:48.358 –> 00:24:48.458
Patricia Culley: Thank.
00:24:48.478 –> 00:24:49.238
I really enjoyed it.
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Through in-depth conversations, the podcast highlights how Radically Student Centered™ approaches can make a tangible difference in schools, inspiring educators, administrators, designers, and anyone passionate about the future of learning.
