Education
We partner with schools, colleges, and universities to design engaging, flexible, and resilient learning environments, drawing on our global research and multidisciplinary expertise to shape experiences that empower all students.
Wichita State University Woolsey Hall, Wichita, Kan.
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The academic building of tomorrow will be even more radically different as young learners come to expect more of their learning environments when they reach the university level.
—Deborah Shepley, Education leader
27 Items
WPI Unity Hall
Worcester, Massachusetts
Unity Hall is an academic research building focused on computational-based technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including robotics, data science, bioinformatics, and computational biology. The success of Unity Hall lies in its ability to forge connections both physically between...
West Virginia University Reynolds Hall, John Chambers College of Business and Economics
Morgantown, West Virginia
The goal of the John Chambers College of Business and Economics was to help WVU write its next chapter in business education in a new home, while transforming the campus, the community of Morgantown, and the student experience. The Ideation Hub, which hovers over the main entry, is a highly...
Southwestern College Student Union
Chula Vista, California
The Southwestern College (SWC) Student Union will become the heart of the school campus and provide students and faculty with a new space to engage, interact, and socialize. As a complement to SWC’s academic experience, the new Student Union will offer spaces for students to meet and hang out...
CSULB Parkside North Residence Hall and Housing Administration Building
Long Beach, California
California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) enlisted Gensler’s climate and sustainability services to help reach the university’s goal of achieving net-zero status by 2030. Two ambitious projects establish a culture of sustainability and set a tone for the future of the campus. As USGBC...
Tarrant County College Northwest Campus
Fort Worth, Texas
To enliven its Northwest Campus, Tarrant County College District is partnering with Gensler to redefine the student experience and showcase a 21st-century learning environment designed to align with the institution’s mission to function as One College, be Student Ready, and Serve the Community...
Tsinghua University School of Economics & Management
Beijing, China
Consistently ranked as the top academic institution in China, Tsinghua University partnered with Gensler Beijing to design an extension of its newest campus building — the School of Economics and Management. The new academic building design celebrates connectivity and serendipitous interactions...
Friendship Foundation Campus
Redondo Beach, California
Designed by Gensler, the Friendship Campus encompasses a 50,000-square-foot building that will serve the Los Angeles area through its mission to transform the lives of people with special needs, their families, volunteers, and eventually, society at large. Planned around a pair of courtyards and...
Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Heights Branch
Brooklyn, New York
Located at an activated corner in the community, the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Heights Branch represents a welcoming change for the neighborhood landmark. Gensler’s redesign of the 27,000-square-foot library, the largest branch in Brooklyn, transformed an outdated space into an...
Western Kentucky University Commons at Helm Library
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Fulfilling a desire to create a new destination for students, faculty, and the campus community, the Commons at Helm Library will be a new intellectual hub at the historic academic heart of campus. A team of Gensler education designers worked in partnership with the architect of record, Luckett...
Wake Tech Community College Hendrick Center for Automotive Excellence
Raleigh, North Carolina
With multiple campuses across Wake County, Wake Tech is North Carolina's largest community college. For its Northern Wake campus, just 20 minutes outside downtown Raleigh, Wake Tech partnered with Gensler to design the new home for its premier automotive and collision program. Though previously...
University of Hawaii, West O'ahu Academy for Creative Media
Kapolei, Hawaii
The Academy for Creative Media is a nexus for filmmaking and computational media in Hawaii. Located on the West O’ahu campus of the University of Hawaii, the sophisticated creative media center features media labs, classrooms, experimental content creation space, a 3,000-square-foot sound stage...
Georgetown Day School
Washington, D.C.
Founded in 1945 as the first racially integrated school in the nation's capital, Georgetown Day School continues to be a beacon of progressive education. To prepare for the next chapter in its remarkable history, the school engaged Gensler to unite its academic campus, which was previously...
Western Kentucky University Campus Plan
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Created with input from a range of stakeholders, Gensler designed the Western Kentucky University Campus Master Plan as a visionary roadmap focused on the student experience. The campus master plan encompasses space and land utilization, programming across campus, and upgrades to improve student...
Columbia College Chicago Student Center
Chicago, Illinois
Columbia College Chicago’s five-story, 114,000-square-foot student center is the first on its expansive urban campus since the school’s founding in 1890. The structure provides a diverse student body with a welcoming, inspiring hub for creativity, collaboration and chance encounters. The project...
University of San Diego Learning Commons
San Diego, California
Gensler worked with the University of San Diego (USD) to program and design its new Learning Commons facility to address classroom capacity issues on campus as well as provide active and flexible spaces for interaction, study, and learning. The heart of the academic building is designed as one...
Dwight-Englewood Village & Middle School
Englewood, New Jersey
The Dwight-Englewood Village & Middle School is a part of Gensler’s continuing work on the school’s master plan that seeks to bring the most innovative thinking on the future of education to the campus. The underlying premise of the academic building is to establish a distinct identity for each...
International Center of Photography
New York, New York
The world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture, the International Center of Photography (ICP) enlisted Gensler to realize its 20-year goal of unifying its museum and school under one roof. Purpose-built as the cultural anchor of the new Essex Crossing development...
UCLA Anderson Marion Anderson Hall
Los Angeles, California
Gensler envisioned the new Marion Anderson Hall as a truly forward-looking environment for business education. Four stories of learning, administrative, and event spaces are organized around an active atrium that offers space for students, faculty, administrators, and visitors to interact and...
El Sewedy University
New Cairo, Egypt
El Sewedy University's Knowledge Hub aims to educate and develop well-rounded citizens to meet the dynamic and challenging demands of the global job market by offering its students an integrated academic experience, where the campus itself is part of the learning process. In order to make the El...
Lamar University Science and Technology Building
Beaumont, Texas
Lamar University’s Science and Technology Building displays science at the center of the school’s emerging academic quad, while providing a transparent hub for scientific creativity that embodies a new paradigm for interaction, instruction, and research. Lamar University is a public research...
CCSD 22 Classroom Elementary School Addition Prototype
Las Vegas, Nevada
Two-story, 22-classroom additions are meeting a pressing need on Clark County School District Elementary School campuses. To accommodate growth in student numbers and provide a permanent classroom for students located in temporary facilities, Gensler designed a prototype building that has a...
Mesa College, Center for Business & Technology
San Diego, California
The Center for Business & Technology serves as a home to Mesa College's business, computer information science, multimedia, and fashion programs. The Center incorporates collaborative spaces and innovative technology bars, giving students a glimpse into the professional working world. Designed...
Lynn University Student Center
Boca Raton, Forida
The University Center is the heart of Lynn, a place that becomes an extension of home. Merging a youthful vibe with a comfortable home-away-from-home atmosphere the building has all the components that provide support, connectivity, and entertainment. Open gathering spaces are defined by...
Aspire College Station
College Station, Texas
Aspire College Station was created to offer Texas A&M University students a lifestyle, not just an apartment. The result is a luxury living environment that is conducive to learning and growing. The 15-story tower provides 263 apartments, each furnished with contemporary furniture, a modern...
Eastwood Academy
Lusail Planned City, Qatar
Eastwood Academy, a K-12 school in the planned city of Lusail in Qatar, will be an immersive, sustainable and innovative environment that expands Beirut-based Eastwood College's future-oriented educational mission. Taking its inspiration from the dhow, a traditional Arabic sailboat, Gensler’s...
CSU Northridge Student Sustainability Center
Northridge, California
Home to the university’s recycling operations and its Institute for Sustainability, this LEED Platinum facility is a landmark achievement for the CSU Northridge campus in the school’s ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship. Through net zero consulting and LEED certification management...
Wiseburn USD & Da Vinci Schools
El Segundo, California
Gensler has transformed a large, defunct office building into an innovative high school facility for Wiseburn USD and Da Vinci Schools. Once a secretive engineering facility for a military contractor, it is now a hyper-adaptable learning facility that houses three independently run public...
Client Services
Across the entire learning spectrum, we develop strategies and solutions that are purposeful, engaging, effective, sustainable, and future-proof.
Strategic Services
Our interdisciplinary and integrated team of architects, planners, designers, and strategists partners with clients to develop engagement strategies, educational planning, campus planning, and education design projects. Our expertise includes academic workplace design, space analytics, brand design, and change management.
Campus Planning
We collaborate with clients and communities to develop high-quality environments that respond to the aspirations and needs of users. Our campus planning approach is guided by research and an understanding of what makes an attractive place while responding to site-specific conditions and addressing sustainability.
Programming and Pre-Design
We generate innovative solutions that affect real transformation to support our clients’ visions and long-term strategies. We gather input from stakeholders to articulate a vision, define goals, build consensus, overlay the formative qualities of the site, and measure against budgets.
Architecture
Architecture is always in service to its institution and can elevate experience. Rather than employ a particular style or off-the-shelf solution, we create designs that respond to programs that sharpen, and even recast, the longstanding purpose of a place.
Interior Design
Our interior designers work collaboratively and strategically to deliver innovation, quality, and sustainable performance across various space typologies. We specify presentations and approvals throughout the process to ensure each design satisfies and reflects our clients’ unique missions and visions.
FF&E
As the world’s largest specifier of furniture, we understand that it must serve current and future generations and be adaptable to changing functions. Our specification process is centered around defining the space to select furniture that fits both the project and overall aesthetic.
Brand Design and Environmental Graphics
We integrate graphic design, signage and wayfinding, and architectural placemaking to create spaces with meaning and purpose. Gensler’s Brand Design practice provides specialist designers, strategists, and programmers to create a seamless user experience and unified brand impression.
Sustainability
We integrate sustainable design across our projects and all facets of service offerings to reduce energy and enhance wellness, performance, and quality of life. Teaming with our engineering partners, our holistic approach to sustainability focuses on net-zero, passive strategies, efficient systems, and renewable generation.
INSIGHTS
Blog
Listening vs. Prescribing: Understanding How Students Perceive Education Spaces Today
To design schools where students feel like they truly belong, it is critical to hear directly from the students about their lived experiences.
Blog
Investing in Lifelong Learning Experiences to Reenergize our Workplaces
As a process, lifelong learning hasn’t translated itself into our culture or manifested itself in our everyday lives.
Blog
The Path Ahead: Leveraging Lessons for the Future of PreK-12 Learning
After more than two very challenging years for education, the question in front of us now is: what lessons have been learned about our children’s education and the role of schools in our communities?
Blog
4 Strategies for Amplifying Health and Well-being in Residence Halls
Gensler’s design for an on-campus housing project for CSULB takes a holistic approach to sustainability, focusing on student health, well-being, and equity.
Blog
Redefining Learning for the 21st Century
Right now, we have the perfect opportunity to reassess the learning process and take a broader view of what it means to be a learner in the post-pandemic age.
Blog
Building a Better Academic Workplace
The 1,000-year-old academic workplace might finally have reached its breaking point — here’s how to reengineer it in a smarter way.
WEBINAR
Master Planning for the Whole Student: Well-Being and Inclusivity in Higher Education
Gensler’s Education leaders and administrators from top academic institutions share how colleges and universities can take a “whole student approach” to campus planning and design.
Blog
Designing an Innovation District for the City of Austin
Austin’s Innovation District unites education, entertainment, leisure, and sports. This type of urban, mixed-use center brings in new business and diverse populations, while enhancing the culture of a city.
Research
Education Engagement Index 2022
We surveyed students, educators, and staff members at U.S.-based colleges and universities to understand their experiences and expectations for the future of higher education.
Blog
3 Lessons From Today’s Students That Will Shape the Future Workplace
Coupling findings from Gensler’s Workplace Survey and Education Engagement Index research, we’ve identified three key findings that the future workplace cannot ignore.
Blog
Learning From Home: 3 Key Lessons for the Future of PreK-12 Learning
How can the experience of working, parenting, teaching, and learning from home inform opportunities for future learning environments? Here are three key insights.
Insight
Design Forecast 2022: Education
As students look to schools not just as places of learning — but as places to feel safe, engaged, and included — there is an ongoing emphasis on educating and nurturing the whole student and their well-being.
Blog
Reflecting on the First Year of Black Lives and Design Grants
Gensler’s Black Lives and Design grants fund research dedicated to addressing systemic racism, unconscious bias, and social justice, as relates to areas of inquiry, such as workplace and cities.
Blog
Campus Masterplan 2.0: Including an Integrated Wellness Strategy
By creating a network of engagements and reinforcements throughout a student’s daily journey, academic institutions can normalize wellness and shift it from a place to go, to a state of mind.
Research
Education and the BIPOC Experience
We surveyed BIPOC students to understand how they perceive and experience education spaces in order to find new ways to design schools that make all students feel safe and included.
EDUCATION DESIGN TRENDS TO WATCH
The purpose of the campus is shifting to include more spaces that support students outside the classroom.
With increased choices for learning and working, the purpose of the physical campus is shifting to focus on building community — supporting relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being. Leading institutions are redesigning and investing in spaces that maximize student experiences, promote belonging, shed unneeded buildings, and reduce carbon footprints.
Hybrid is here to stay.
While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may be with us for a long time, students and educators have demonstrated incredible resilience. The swift adoption and continued improvement of hybrid learning and working highlight the need to support a wide variety of needs and preferences. To attract students and retain employees, institutions need a range of space types that support participation.
Education pathways are expanding to prepare students for careers that don’t require degrees.
The cost of higher education and the growing need for high-tech skills that don’t require a degree are causing many students to reconsider college. High schools and community colleges are responding by providing programs and places for diverse learners to design their educational journeys that prepare them for meaningful careers.
Hybrid models are strongly preferred by students, educators, and staff. Campus communities seek a range of participation options for learning, teaching, and working.
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Gensler Education Engagement Index 2022
EDUCATION DESIGN LEADERSHIP
Deborah Shepley
Education Leader, Principal
Deborah is a principal and global Education practice area leader who has partnered with over 45 higher education institutions to facilitate integrated, participatory, and...
Mark Thaler
Education Leader, Studio Director, Principal
With over 30 years of experience, Mark is the global co-leader of Gensler’s Education practice and is one of the firm’s experts in the design of learning environments and...
NEWS
In The Media
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The Dallas Morning News
Designed by Gensler, Frisco Public Library Opens as the Sixth Largest Library in Texas
The Dallas Morning News quoted Gensler’s Justin Bashaw, who shared insights on the design vision for the new Frisco Public Library.
March 17, 2023
In The Media
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Latest Finance
Key Strategies for Designing Academic Research Institutions That Stimulate Innovation
The Gensler Education Engagement Index found a correlation between inspirational spaces and engagement in academic and research environments.
February 10, 2023
Recognition
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Building Design+Construction
Gensler
Building Design+Construction recognized Gensler as the #1 firm on its 2022 list of the top firms in the university sector.
August 22, 2022
In The Media
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Education Snapshots
The West Coast University Campus Provides a Connected and Energized Campus Experience
By prioritizing the student experience, Gensler transformed a commercial office building into an activated learning ecosystem.
July 19, 2022
In The Media
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The Architect's Newspaper
Brooklyn Public Library Opens Its New Gensler-Designed Brooklyn Heights Branch
The largest Brooklyn Public Library branch location features a reading room, community event space, and ample “bright, airy spaces” to browse, create, and read.
June 08, 2022
In The Media
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Fort Worth Daily News
Frisco Public Library Gives New Life to a Former Rocket Manufacturing Facility In Texas
Gensler Dallas’ adaptive reuse of a rocket manufacturing facility transformed the space into a library, which offers a nod to a vanishing prairie landscape.
May 30, 2022
In The Media
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Architectural Products
Gensler’s Mark Thaler Discusses Designing for Student Living and Learning Communities
Gensler designed Lynn University Mary and Harold Perper Residence Hall into smaller-scaled communities so that “students can belong to and connect with each other at different scales.”
October 25, 2021
In The Media
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Banker & Tradesman
Higher Education is Ready to Resume Growth Plans
Gensler’s Ken Fisher talks with Banker & Tradesman about higher education campus and building trends.
August 29, 2021
In The Media
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Inhabitat
Cal State Long Beach’s On-Campus Housing Supports The University’s Carbon-Zero Goals
The highly sustainable design of CSULB’s student housing building contributes to the university’s goal to have the entire campus reach carbon-zero status by 2030.
August 27, 2021
In The Media
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Building Design+Construction
CSU Long Beach’s New Student Housing Project Is One of California’s Most Sustainable
BD+C spotlighted Gensler’s design of CSULB’s Residence Hall and Housing Administration Building, which is pursuing LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge Certifications.
August 09, 2021
In The Media
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Oculus
How Design Can Build an Optimistic, Equitable Future for Education
In an op-ed for Oculus, Gensler Education Leader Mark Thaler discusses challenges around equity and designing learning spaces to support all students.
July 21, 2021
In The Media
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The Architect’s Newspaper
Gensler and Frisco Public Library Envision a Dynamic, Multifaceted Community Resource Hub
The $62 million adaptive reuse project by Gensler’s Dallas office will celebrate Frisco’s ecological history and facilitate active learning.
June 30, 2021
In The Media
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Inside Higher Ed
Gensler Education Leader Deborah Shepley Discusses Community College Housing Design
Community college leaders and lawmakers are reinvigorating efforts to provide student housing after the pandemic shed light on housing insecurity.
June 04, 2021
In The Media
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Columbia College
Columbia College Chicago’s First-Ever Student Center Welcomes Its Community of Creatives
The five-story space designed by Gensler acts as the campus hub for gathering, collaborating, learning, and celebrating.
April 01, 2021