By Lindsey Coulter

For decades, school design has followed a familiar formula: self-contained classrooms lined along corridors. While educational practices have evolved dramatically, many school buildings continue to reflect this decades-old model.

Architecture, planning and engineering firm SHP set out to challenge that convention with Peck Expeditionary Learning School in Greensboro, N.C. The project, completed for Guilford County Schools, was designed specifically to support the Expeditionary Learning (EL) educational model, requiring SHP to rethink nearly every assumption about how a school should function.

Education Philosophy Drives Design

Introduced in 1995, Expeditionary Learning (EL) is an educational philosophy that reimagines learning as an active, inquiry-driven and collaborative process. EL emphasizes real-world problem solving and interdisciplinary projects that encourage students to investigate, collaborate, reflect and present their work. That dynamic approach presented SHP with a unique design challenge.

“Expeditionary Learning inverts almost every default architectural assumption,” said David Powell, Principal and Partner at SHP. “The building had to become an active participant in learning and not just a passive container. You need transparency, reconfigurability and interconnected spaces that support project work.”

The first step was abandoning the traditional classroom concept. SHP instead designed the 142,000-square-foot, $78.7 million school as a series of learning neighborhoods organized around an Expeditionary Learning Commons. Flexible learning studios surround these commons and connect through extensive interior glazing, operable garage doors and movable partitions. Teachers can easily combine spaces, separate groups or allow multiple classes to work together. Students remain visually connected to one another, reinforcing collaboration as a shared experience rather than an isolated classroom activity.

Designing Behavior, Not Just Buildings

The EL philosophy also complements SHP’s approach to educational planning, as the firm’s goal is to create environments that naturally encourage the behaviors educators hope to foster.

“A building supports pedagogy when the architecture makes the desired behavior the path of least resistance,” Powell said. “When collaborating, moving outdoors, working in small groups, presenting to an audience and even learning from failure become easier than fighting the building itself, then the architecture is doing its job.”

For example, instead of keeping students static and seated, the building encourages movement between collaborative spaces, presentation areas, quiet work zones and outdoor learning environments.

Multiple scales of space allow students to work independently, gather in small groups or engage larger learning communities without encountering physical barriers. The result is an environment that quietly reinforces instructional goals through architecture rather than relying solely on operational policies.

Solving for Openness Without Sacrificing Performance

Creating interconnected learning environments naturally raises noise concerns. Traditional acoustic guidelines were largely developed for enclosed classrooms with fixed walls and don’t really account for flexible EL learning environments.

“But just as architects know how to control daylight through thoughtful placement of windows, we can control sound through careful planning, strategic adjacencies and thoughtful partition configurations,” Powell explained.

Learning neighborhoods were carefully organized so that collaborative energy could coexist with focused instruction. Strategic placement of spaces, combined with movable partitions and intentional spatial relationships, allows activity to occur without creating the chaotic environment often associated with large open spaces.

Architecture That Supports Belonging

Beyond flexibility and collaboration, SHP also prioritized social-emotional learning, understanding that architecture can play a meaningful role in helping students feel connected, supported and valued — particularly in communities where educational investment has historically lagged.

Located within Greensboro’s Glenwood neighborhood, Peck Expeditionary Learning serves one of North Carolina’s most economically challenged communities, where the previous school building was constructed in 1929. For SHP, providing an innovative learning environment became a matter of educational equity.

“I love working with clients who believe every student deserves an exceptional learning environment,” Powell said.“When a district is brave enough to move beyond traditional educational models, architecture can help create social and emotional connections that simply aren’t possible inside isolated classroom boxes.”

Throughout Peck, visual openness helps students remain connected to teachers and peers, while varied learning environments allow them to find spaces that support their individual learning styles. Those seemingly small design decisions can have a big impact.

“Kids learn better when they’re not in a container,” Powell said. “When you take away those rigid boundaries and provide different kinds of learning spaces, students find the place where they learn best.”

Learning From the Building After Occupancy

Unlike projects that conclude when students move in, SHP views Peck as an ongoing learning opportunity. The firm is conducting a comprehensive post-occupancy evaluation that includes interviews, surveys and building observations to better understand how students and educators are using the space.

“We didn’t want year one to simply be a feeling that the building worked,” Powell said. “We wanted it to become an actionable report that helps us improve future projects and gives the next district confidence to be brave enough to rethink what a school can be.”

One of Powell’s favorite indicators of success wasn’t captured in a survey but during the school’s opening, when a young student climbed into one of the building’s circular windows, settled into the space and silently offered two enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Similarly, the school’s central courtyard, created between two building wings, has become one of the building’s most popular destinations.

“The building’s arms are wrapped around the students,” Powell said. “For children who don’t always feel safe once they leave campus, they’ve discovered an outdoor place where they feel protected and connected. Watching them choose to spend time there has been one of the most rewarding parts of the project.”

The SHP Approach and Difference

For SHP, the design process begins well before a floor plan takes shape. The firm’s work is rooted in listening, believing that transformational spaces are created only by taking into account the lived experiences of the people who inhabit them. Before a single line is drawn, the firm’s designers make a point of engaging with the educators, students and community members who will be using the space every day. This process is implemented into every educational project the firm undertakes; it actually earned SHP the James D. MacConnell Award in 2023.

That process is especially important for districts exploring more flexible, student-centered models of learning. Peck, for instance, was built around a pedagogy that prioritizes flexibility, student agency and belonging. Rather than layering those ideas into a conventional template, the firm identified ways to make that pedagogy visible and practical throughout the building: smaller learning communities, varied settings for collaboration and independence, and a strong relationship between the building and its external community. The result is a school that was designed to be contextually sensitive to its community, and shaped by and for the community.

This article was sponsored by SHP originally published in the . To learn more, visit .

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By Susan Haigh

It’s not unusual for architects to work closely with a handful of client representatives throughout a construction project. But when designing a 27,000-square-foot addition to the Brooklyn STEAM Center, a career and technical education hub, New York-based architecture, planning and interior design firm Spacesmith invited dozens of high school students into the design process.

During a series of design charrettes, 12 to 15 high school juniors and seniors representing the center’s various career pathways gathered with architects to share ideas and help shape the project. Later, as construction progressed, students in the STEAM Center’s Construction Technology program toured the site about once a month to get an up-close look at how the building was taking shape.

“This was an experiment for us,” said Alexandra Korestki, Senior Associate at Spacesmith. “Having so many more voices in the room, sometimes with wildly different or conflicting opinions, there was the worry about how can we deliver for all of them? How do we make sure that no one walks away disappointed?”

Korestki credits Brooklyn STEAM’s leadership with making the collaborative approach possible.

“Ultimately, having the students present for the discussions about project challenges and constraints, getting insight into all the factors that go into project decisions, not only helped get the buy-in from the rest of the student population, but also gave them a sense of ownership and responsibility for the space, even when some of their ideas from the charrette couldn’t be implemented,” she said.

Designing with Students

Student input ultimately shaped key elements of the design. Early plans called for a single large common area that would serve as a gathering place for breaks and student events. But discussions during a pair of design charrettes, where students brainstormed and sketched ideas for their ideal space, convinced the design team that students and staff needed a variety of places to recharge rather than one central gathering area.

Those conversations revealed several recurring themes, including safety, representation, nature, joy and rest.

“They described a need for quieter, calmer, low-stimulus areas to take a break when they’re overwhelmed or stressed from academic pressures,” Korestki said.

In response, the design team was intentional about matching colors and textures with the scale and purpose of each space. Small “focus nooks” — semiprivate niches at the ends of corridors, away from busy foot traffic but still within sight of staff — were designed with darker, monochromatic palettes intended to create a calming atmosphere. A lounge for small groups and the commons for larger gatherings, meanwhile, feature brighter colors and materials meant to encourage creativity and collaboration, she said.

Students continued meeting with the design team throughout the process, giving them an opportunity to see how their ideas evolved from sketches into finished spaces.

Empowering Students and Staff

At Brooklyn STEAM, which is located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard — a 300-acre industrial waterfront campus in Brooklyn, N.Y., that’s home to more than 550 businesses — students are treated and trusted as young professionals. Spacesmith leaned into that philosophy, giving students and instructors as much control as possible over their environment.

“Everything is modular and easily movable, so the classrooms and common space can be reconfigured to suit daily needs,” Korestki said.

Curved sofas in the commons can be arranged into “concave modules” that encourage conversation or “convex modules” that create more private seating areas facing away from others.

“Having choices and some control over how [the sofas] exist in the environment fosters that sense of ownership and some control and responsibility for the space that they might not have in a typical high school,” she said.

The center’s addition opened in October 2025. Designed between July 2023 and May 2024, the project includes new classrooms, shops, lounge areas and administrative space. The expansion is anchored by an entry wall that features the school’s logo and tool-inspired motifs.

The expansion houses six career pathways: HVAC climate control systems, game design, industrial product realization, manufacturing, live production technology and audio engineering. Students enrolled at Brooklyn STEAM Center split their time between their traditional high schools, where they take academic courses such as math and English, and the STEAM Center, where they receive hands-on technical training.

Enrollment is expected to double to 600 students with the expansion, part of New York City Public Schools’ goal of preparing 100,000 students for market-aligned careers by 2030.

“This center connects our students to life-changing opportunities, and we are so grateful that this expansion will allow more students to gain these experiences,” said former NYC Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos when the addition opened in October 2025.

Founded in 2017, the STEAM Center offers courses co-designed with industry partners, including many Brooklyn Navy Yard tenants. Students also participate in paid internships, site visits and other work-based learning opportunities with businesses across the campus.

“By placing education within our innovation ecosystem, we create the conditions for students to see themselves in the jobs of tomorrow and as a result see remarkable outcomes for students,” said Lindsay Greene, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

This article was featured as the Facility Showcase in the . To learn more about how the new facility was designed to be flexible for evolving programming, .

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