Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

KI Joins Education Design Research Consortium as Founding Sponsor

  • By Matt Jones
  • 09/17/24

Furniture solutions manufacturer KI recently announced alongside the Center for Advanced Design Research and Evaluation (CADRE) that it will become a founding sponsor for the Coalition for the Advanced Understanding of School Environments (CAUSE). A news release reports that the coalition’s research will focus on the relationship between K–12 physical environments and educational outcomes.

CAUSE members include architecture firms, local school districts, academic institutions, and research organizations, according to the news release. It was founded by researchers from organizations like CADRE, Perkins&Will, Multistudio, HKS, and the Austin Independent School District.

“We're excited to support CAUSE in its mission to use evidence-based insights to improve educational environments,” said KI research manager Jonathan “Juan” Matta. “We're eager to contribute to developing a research tool that will provide critical findings for enhancing how and where students learn.”

The coalition will develop a standardized, open-source, post-occupancy evaluation tool to measure how built environments impact the educational results of K–12 schools. They will consider elements like lighting, acoustics, ergonomic seating, access to nature, and more while creating an initial version of the tool, which will be deployed during a pilot study this fall in a Texas School district. Research will focus on “how school design impacts health and educational performance, establish[ing] data collection protocols for K–12 facilities, and promot[ing] interdisciplinary collaboration and an open-source approach within the industry,” according to the news release.

“Contemporary science is fundamentally a collaborative endeavor. CAUSE represents an industry commitment to working across organizations to generate better data that can improve the positive impacts of design for teachers and students,” said Michael Ralph, one of the coalition’s founding members and vice president at Multistudio. “The strength of our initiative comes from the expertise provided by our many leaders across research and design, and only by pooling our collective wisdom can we advance our efforts toward evidence-driven design excellence.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Hawaii Elementary School Breaks Ground on New Classroom Building

    Kealakehe Elementary School in Kailua, Hawaii, recently began construction on a new, $16-million classroom building for its campus, according to a news release. The 13,000-square-foot building will stand two stories and connect the existing upper and lower campuses.

  • Northeastern University Breaks Ground on New Housing Community

    Northeastern University recently announced the groundbreaking of a new student housing community on its campus in Boston, Mass., according to a news release. The university is partnering with American Campus Communities (ACC) for development of the project, which will have the capacity for 1,200 students and has a scheduled completion date of fall 2028.

  • University of Kentucky Receives $150M Gift Toward New Arts District

    The University of Kentucky’s Board of Trustees recently received a $150-million gift from The Bill Gatton Foundation, according to a university news release, to build a new arts district on the campus in Lexington, Ky. The new district will feature a new College of Fine Arts building and a multi-hundred-seat theater, among other amenities.

  • Preparing for the Next Era of Healthcare Education, Innovation

    Across the country, public universities and community colleges are accelerating investments in healthcare education facilities as part of a broader strategy to address workforce shortages, modernize outdated infrastructure, and expand clinical training capacity. These projects, which are often located at the center of campus health and science districts, are no longer limited to traditional classrooms.