Educational environments need to support today’s evolving pedagogy, but they also need to align with the financial realities of the district. While many educational environments are changing, grade level configuration is an aspect that often remains fixed. To simply approach grade level configuration as a given is to potentially miss opportunities to realize significant positive impact.
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Are you in the mood for a nice steak dinner in a formal atmosphere one night and a casual Italian meal another? What about a quality buffet style brunch, or just an intimate meal with close friends? A major shift in the Senior Living market, influenced by the diverse tastes of the Baby Boomers, is toward facilities with multi point venues for dining. Between a desired lifestyle of the residents and many marketing advantages, we don’t see this trend going away any time soon.
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Plunkett Raysich Architects, LLP announced the promotion of Kevin Broich, AIA, NCARB to Partner, effective as of January 1, 2018.
“Kevin has been a tremendous addition not only to our healthcare studio, but to the firm overall,” said David Raysich, AIA, Managing Partner. “He brings a number of positive attributes to our team, including his leadership, expertise, and level of care for our clients and their end-users. He’s a great fit for our partnership and I look forward to seeing where his leadership can help take our firm moving forward.”
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Demand for Catholic education is increasing rapidly as parishes consolidate their school systems. Traditionally, each Catholic church would run their own school. Now, as the trend turns to shared school systems that serve multiple parishes, the school buildings need to expand for the growth.
Expanding for growth can mean either renovating and adding on to existing school buildings, or creating a whole new school building. Either way, the challenges remain the same. The school building has to serve more than one purpose.
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Most people think the main job of an Architect is to create beautiful buildings. But that’s only partly correct. At PRA, we’re problem solvers first. Clients hire us when they have a facilities issue they don’t have the ability to solve by themselves. Our clients either need additional physical space, want to improve operational efficiency, or need to improve their image or facility brand. In many cases, the client needs or wants all three.
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We live in dangerous times. As any lighting designer will tell you, LED lighting is here to stay, bringing with it a vast array of opportunities and challenges. The opportunities include energy savings, dim ability, and new fixture designs that were never before possible, but LED fixtures are still plagued with uncertain color rendition, as well as brightness and glare issues, making it challenging to create the lighting effects that are so important to our perception of a space.
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We all know we only get one chance to make a good first impression. In the blink of an eye a judgement will be made that could dramatically impact our future, whether we know it or not. The same holds true for architecture. A prospective customer or future star employee will approach your place of business someday and quickly determine if your vision and values align with theirs.
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Designing buildings for clients who intend to own and occupy them has some advantages, including the ability to incorporate features that cost more initially, but pay for themselves over a short period of time. One such feature is the raised floor, which is an elevated floor of removable panels built above the structural floor.
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Architects are always looking for a fresh idea to wow their clients. When we found one that involved bringing fresh air into the workplace, we knew we had a winning combination. The idea involves designing the typical small department break area so that it can be opened to the outside, allowing employees the rare opportunity to literally step outside while remaining near their desk – even if it’s on an upper floor of the building.
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