What Can You Learn from 150 Years of Experience?

03.08.201806.11.2023

PRA Healthcare Design and PRA Senior LIving Design leaders work together to share leadership lessons

Learning about past experiences in design and construction is key in order to keep creating quality healthcare environments. The Healthcare in the Built Environment Conference is a chance for Owners, representatives, designers, architects, contractors, and Authorities Having Jurisdiction to continue that education. Healthcare environments are complex systems best accomplished through collaboration and teamwork. This conference is structured to facilitate the communication required to achieve optimal outcomes.

Puzzle Pieces

02.19.201808.29.2018

A flexible student learning environment in RIpon, Wisconsin, allows student groups of different sizes to work together with supervision from the classrooms.

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.

ARE YOU A FOODIE?

02.02.201806.11.2023

Senior Living Campuses provide a range of meal options, including a variety of settings and supporting special diets.

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.

Kevin Broich Joins Partnership

02.01.201806.11.2023

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.”

Keeping the Faith in Catholic Education

01.16.201806.11.2023

A flexible student / teacher workspace in the Catholic elementary school, Lumen Christi in Mequon, Wisconsin. Furniture allows the room to serve many functions, and glass provides views in and out of the room to increase supervision and safety.

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.

Architects Are Problem Solvers First

10.16.201706.11.2023

Education Architect Devin Kack collaborates with a member of the school design studio

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.

Making Ambiance Great Again

09.22.201706.11.2023

Successful corporate workspaces include a variety of workstations and the ability to easily collaborate, especially important with creative agencies such as the Traction Factory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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.

So who are you?

09.07.201706.11.2023

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.

What’s wrong with this picture?

08.18.201706.11.2023

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.