As Schmidt Associates celebrates 50 years, our Legacy Voices series honors the individuals whose talent, passion, and purpose have shaped who we are. Anna Marie Burrell is one of those voices.

Some people walk into a room and start talking. Anna Marie walks in and starts listening. She asks more questions than most people think to ask. She remembers the names of the students who walked through a building years after the ribbon is cut. Those qualities—curiosity, patience, genuine care for people—are exactly what make her one of the most respected K-12 designers in the region. As principal and studio leader at Schmidt Associates, she has spent more than 21 years helping communities across Indiana and Kentucky build schools that feel, unmistakably, like theirs.

Few people have had a front-row seat to Anna Marie’s impact longer than Kyle Miller, principal and longtime collaborator.

“Anna Marie has been a driving force behind our firm’s success in acquiring and delivering K-12 projects, including some of the largest and most complex work we’ve ever done,” Miller said. “She has earned the respect and admiration of our Owners, our staff, and colleagues across the industry. Simply put, people love working with Anna.”

A foundation in curiosity

Anna Marie was working in architecture by the time she was 14, sketching alongside architects at Browning Day Mullins Dierdorff. It was at Schenkel Shultz, though, where her philosophy took root. There, Tom Neff, who would later become a principal at Schmidt Associates, taught her to think about educational space through the lens of curriculum: what are students learning, and how can a building support that?

That question led her to Schmidt Associates. While collaborating on Indianapolis Public Schools projects, she watched the firm bring students directly into the design process, a level of care and community engagement that left a mark. When the opportunity to join the team came, she took it.

What she found

What Anna Marie had seen from the outside proved true on the inside. The culture of servant leadership shaped how the firm showed up for Owners, for communities, and for one another, and it became the foundation of her own approach to leadership and design.

“That same care that we give our Owners is what we define as servant leadership. And Wayne really exemplified that,” Burrell said.

Miller puts it the same way: “Anna Marie embodies what servant leadership looks like in action, consistently putting others first, elevating the people around her, and leading with humility, strength, and heart.”

Hear Anna Marie reflect on the 2000s, Wayne Schmidt’s servant leadership, and the culture she found at Schmidt Associates on our Luminate podcast:

The art of seeing

The instincts that define Anna Marie’s design approach trace back not to a drafting table, but to a dance studio. She trained at Butler University’s Jordan Academy of Dance and performed as a student trainee with the Indianapolis Ballet Theater. She was drawn to the way dance communicates without words, through line, rhythm, form, and feeling. The parallel to architecture is striking. A building, like a performance, should tell a story and make people feel something.

The work

Anna Marie makes it her mission to hear from everyone a project will touch—community members, district leadership, and the students themselves. She holds space for Owners to work through challenges on their own terms, guiding them toward solutions that are truly theirs, then stays relentless until that vision is fully realized.

Lawrence North and Lawrence Central High Schools. Principal-in-Charge. Anna Marie led the parallel transformation of both Lawrence Township campuses, ensuring students at each had equal opportunity, equal resources, and equal pride. New classroom wings, flexible Innovation Studios, and distributed athletics and arts resources now stand as a unified statement of equity for the district.

Northview Middle School. Principal-in-Charge. Serving 1,050 students on 60 wooded acres in Indianapolis’ Nora neighborhood, Northview was designed through deep collaboration with students, staff, and the community, resulting in grade-level pods that make a large school feel safe and personal, with a community garden and native planting areas woven into the site.

Washington Township Early Learning Center. Principal-in-Charge. Anna Marie led the design of a new Early Learning Center for Hilltop Developmental Preschool serving children ages 2 to 5, with classroom neighborhoods, quiet spaces, and raised ceilings that frame views of treetops, a building designed to feel safe, warm, and connected to the natural world from the very first day. Take a closer look at this transformational project.

P.R. Mallory Redevelopment. Principal-in-Charge. The historic 1921 P.R. Mallory factory on Indianapolis’ near east side was reimagined as a 21st-century learning environment for Purdue Polytechnic High School and the Paramount School of Excellence, transforming a neighborhood eyesore into a community anchor that generated more than $62 million in economic output.

Kathryn Roche, interior designer and one of Anna Marie’s mentees, witnessed that trust in a moment she has never forgotten. At a Lawrence Township Schools event, Superintendent Dr. Shawn Smith spotted Anna Marie across the room, crossed to her, and pulled her into a hug. “Look at what you’ve helped us build,” he said. For Roche, it said everything. “Anna Marie had created a long-lasting friendship that caused this Owner to trust us implicitly,” she said. “Bonds like this are very difficult to establish, yet Anna Marie seems to do it effortlessly.”

Growing others

Curiosity has always been one of Anna Marie’s greatest strengths, and she works to cultivate it in everyone around her. She has been a vocal champion of Schmidt Academy, the firm’s internal professional development program, because she believes the best schools deserve architects who are still learning alongside them.

“We wouldn’t be doing what we were doing, and it wouldn’t be as exciting as what it is, if we were not all lifelong learners,” Burrell said.

Roche has experienced that investment firsthand. “Anna Marie is methodical and thoughtful in her approach,” she said. “She works through solutions with a calmness that sets the tone in the room, communicates gently yet confidently, and can be firm when necessary while still exuding kindness. She is always supportive and encouraging and does everything in her power to help her mentees reach their goals. She leads with grace and understanding, and her mentees are better for it.”

Still asking the right questions

Twenty-one years in, Anna Marie Burrell is still doing what she has always done: asking questions, listening closely, and designing spaces that let communities become more fully themselves. That curiosity—the same instinct that drew her to a drafting table at 14, to a dance studio at Butler, to the students and superintendents and neighbors who shape every project—is what makes her work last. We are privileged to tell her story and honored to call her a colleague.

Interested in what thoughtful K-12 design can do for your community? Learn more at https://schmidt-arch.com/k-12-studio/