Where do passionate experts discover the most cutting-edge ideas and trends in educational facility design? Look no further than EDspaces: Designing the Future of Education, the premiere destination for architects, designers, facility planners, distributors and manufacturers from throughout the U.S. to convene under one roof. This year’s attendees met in Houston, November 12-14. For over 10 years, the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education has proudly partnered with EDspaces. We are thrilled to share feedback on the conference, our space, and hopes for next year!
“The value in coming to the event,” says Rebecca Baibak, AIA, CAE 2025 Chair, “is to see in one spot products that enrich facilities and support learning. There are also a variety of sessions that engage educators from across the country in sharing expertise.” She further notes, “The unique aspect of this event is that it tends to be a central point for many communities that are actively engaged in planning and furnishing their spaces.”
Building on this theme, Susan Morgan, AIA, CAE leader, says “EDspaces is a reminder that there is no substitute to connecting in person. The chance to engage in dialogue and to intersect with folks from across the country works especially well with the size of this conference: just big enough that you meet new people across different sections and just small enough that you may see new connections more than once.”
Baibak encourages potential attendees to share to the collaborative wealth and spirit. “I think as architects one of the greatest opportunities at this event is to bring your clients and talk together about how many aspects of educational space come together. It also is a good place to talk directly with vendors and peers across the country about opportunities and challenges in designing facilities.”
When asked what surprised her this year, Morgan appreciated “how well some of the designed classroom environments worked; these are always a source of [discussion] before sessions start, and a few of these spaces prompted really positive engagement.”
This includes CAE’s specialty design space, Bridging the Gap: Promoting Socialization & Hands-On Learning in Middle School Classrooms. Inspired by education theories we have studied, our classroom design promoted comfortable socialization and hands-on learning through scale-able interactions. The goal was to successfully “bridge the gap” of this transitional period for students through inclusive and empathetic design, while helping teachers better understand how to utilize their classrooms.
Scale drawing of CAE EDspaces specialty space
Baibak highlights that the EDspaces CAE specialty space differentiated itself on-site. “The big difference in [the CAE] space is that it brought together many different manufacturers and leveraged this diversity to create a space that was designed for the style of learning occurring at the conference. Many of the other classrooms were designed to highlight what can occur in a classroom, which is great – but not ideal for adults to learn at a conference. I believe the CAE EDspaces classroom did both, which was unique and great to see!” Further, the space “also served as a meeting space for architects at the event as it was a place to talk freely about pros and cons of different pieces, meet up and connect while at the event. A welcome amenity.”
“Something felt different about this year,” Morgan says. “It really felt like the next generation of furnishing [was there]. We saw what’s coming next.”
Diego Barrera, CAE 2024 Chair was impressed with the overall educational content. “[This year,] the quality of sessions was a lot higher. Everyone that I went to I found very interesting. The rooms worked very well, but I was pleased with the content itself.”
If you’ve never attended, next year’s conference, November 5–7, 2025 in Columbus is just around the corner! Overall, Morgan summarizes that there are “great opportunities-especially through CAE-for newly licensed and early career professionals to participate and engage.”
On tap for next year? That’s up to you! The call for presentations opens through the EDspaces site in January. Topics of particular interest include (but are not limited to!):
- Hands-on experiential hybrid learning demonstrations
- Highlighting architectural award winners
- Higher education and non-school learning programs such as community literacy
- Mentorship and programming tailored to early-, mid-, and advanced career stages.
We look forward to welcoming you to EDspaces 2025!