What if an architecture firm was also a leader in informational materials, sharing, explaining and giving back through our architectural talents, expertise and design experience?
ThenDesign Architecture celebrated its 35th anniversary in December 2024. The team gathered for a staff meeting to reflect on the year’s hard work and achievements, followed by a holiday party that brought together current and retired staff to share stories, revisit photos, and enjoy activities.
Residents, students, teachers and neighbors from Fairport Harbor gathered on May 26th to commemorate the Groundbreaking Ceremony of the school district’s new 116,000 SF PreK-12 facility. This new school, which is located on the existing Harding High School site, will provide a modern educational environment for future generations of Fairport Harbor students.
Superintendent George Joseph provides a “sneak peek” into the new athletic facilities that are slated to be completed in the fall of 2022. This virtual tour shows the construction of the buildings and outlines the benefits that they will bring to the District.
“On May 10th, members of the Fairport Harbor Exempted Village School District, the Fairport Harbor Public Library, and community members gathered to hear about the design process for the new 116,000 sf, $50 million Prek-12 school.”
In early 2020, the Perry community approved a bond levy to secure funds to build new elementary schools and perform renovations to the high school. The design and construction process face unprecedented challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic but move forward with providing the best educational environment for Perry Local School students.
In 2019, Lexington Local Schools embarked on a journey to consolidate and redevelop their educational facilities. After a successful bond issue in 2018, combined with extensive educational planning, the district began designs for the new Lexington 7-12 school. This 200,000sf project hosts grades 7-12, dividing them into two academic wings, 7-8 and 9-12.
As design commences for the new Cuyahoga Falls 6-12 Campus, the school district conducted its’ first “in-person” engagement with ThenDesign Architecture, Hammond Construction and members of the community on April 15th. The team met to introduce themselves, describe the scope of the project, answer questions and talk about how this new facility will impact education in the community.
Committed to educating future architects, ThenDesign Architecture (TDA) accepts architectural interns into our office each year. Eleanor Huntley spent her summer months as an intern at TDA. She is driven to explore educational design and improve each student’s experience while impacting their local community.
The Richmond Heights Upper School is an 88,000 sf educational facility located in the city of Richmond Heights, Ohio and serves 420 students in grades 7-12. Designed with the concept of “aviation” in mind, this modern school uses a mixture of curved metal panels and light brick to evoke feelings of lightness, movement, and flight.
Committed to helping educate architects of the future, ThenDesign Architecture (TDA) accepts interns into our office each year. Sophia Blatnik spent the summer as an architectural intern for TDA. Having a natural desire to get involved in public architecture, she was most interested to see how educational design could positively affect a community.
“Student-Centered Design” is an architectural strategy in K-12 educational facilities that provides students a variety of spaces for individual and group work, flexible furniture, and modern technology. This empowers them to adapt their environment to how they learn best. Districts across the U.S. are incorporating these strategies into both their curriculum and schools while experiencing greater student satisfaction, fewer disciplinary issues and increased academic time.
Progress continues on the Cuyahoga Falls 6-12 Campus. Learn about the schematic intent behind the academic design and how cost estimations play a part of the architectural process.
Over the summer, the design team continued to hit milestones in the design of the new Cuyahoga Falls 6-12 Campus. A variety of recent engagements have allowed the team to develop initial “schematic design drawings” that will be further developed in the months ahead.
The Oberlin City School District celebrated a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for their new Pre-K through fifth grade elementary school. Attended by the community, district officials and other dignitaries, the new elementary school provides a modern, collaborative learning environment and features environmentally friendly features that make it a model for sustainable school design.
Cynthia Haight works as an interior designer for ThenDesign Architecture (TDA). Driven to provide the best educational environment for students, she integrates, color, texture and detail in all of her projects. Having a background in psychology, Cynthia integrates this understanding into each space she works on to better create comfortable environments that allow users to succeed.
In early May, students at the Silver Lake Elementary School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio gathered with architects, teachers, and district administrators to design a new playground for their school. While it may be easy to overlook such a small project, seeing a playground through a student’s eyes helps designers deliver a project that fits the needs of the district and students.
North High School in Eastlake Ohio is a 9-12 facility that embodies the educational ideals of the Willoughby/Eastlake School District. Conceptually organized around the idea of unifying a student’s “mind,” “heart” and “body,” this unique structure brings “student centered” learning to its lake front community.
In early 2021, ThenDesign Architecture relocated their offices to Memorial Junior High in Willoughby Ohio. Committed to the economic development of the Willoughby community, Bob Fiala, the founding partner of TDA and Executive Chairman and Chris Smith, the President and CEO, decided to reimagine the former school and develop it to become the new headquarters for an “education focused,” architectural firm.
Community members, district administrators, architecture and construction professionals along with dignitaries attended the New Campus Groundbreaking at Wickliffe City Schools on May 6th, to celebrate the commencement of construction on this exciting new PreK-12 facility. Embodying the goals for education in the district, the new school seeks to provide new spaces and learning opportunities for the students in the City of Wickliffe.
On April 29th 2021, ThenDesign Architecture held an “Educational Visioning” session at the Summit Educational Service Center in Cuyahoga Falls to begin designing for the future of the district’s new 6-12 campus. This day-long event focused on understanding the current challenges with the existing facilities and identifying opportunities the new building will bring.
Driven by the goal to provide the best educational facilities for their young students, Perry Local Schools is in the midst of an ambitious task; the design and construction of 4 new elementary schools across the district. Addressing the challenge of aging infrastructure in their current facilities, these new schools will provide a better organized school layout, community focused spaces, new technology, and a more comfortable and collaborative environment for students to learn in. Now well into the design process, each school showcases a unique characteristic of the Perry Massillon community, with the buildings slated to be completed by the fall of 2023.
Let’s work together to make education better. Interested in speaking with us? Get in touch!