Designing Accessibility On Campus

How Schmidt Associates Designers Made the Alumni House at Allison Mansion Welcoming to All Emulating historical character and turn-of-the-century charm, Allison Mansion housed the family of transportation pioneer James Allison when it was built in 1911. Possessing opulent taste, the mansion was outfitted with an imported German chandelier, a sunken conservatory, a music room with […]

Three Ways VR/AR Engages Audiences While Building Consensus

Seeing your building project on paper is one step closer to becoming a reality but, thanks to technology advancements in Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR), you can now see a project in 3D and start using it to build consensus, early in the process. This is good news for Owners, but before getting into specifics, […]

The Importance of STEM in K-12 Schools

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) might seem like a buzz word or a trend these days, but demand for careers in these fields are steadily increasingly. Our economy and overall well-being depend heavily on STEM-related occupations—whether it is computer programming, manufacturing, civil engineering, or general family medicine. Getting kids involved and interested in STEM-related […]

5 Tips for Designing More Interactive Classrooms

Interactive learning is one of the best ways for teachers and educators to make sure their students are actually grasping the knowledge and skills they are sharing. An effort to combat Mark Twain’s famous sentiment of higher education being “a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes without passing […]

BIM in Dispute Resolution – KGR

I had the opportunity to read a great blog post by my friend Greg Cafouros at Kroger Gardis & Regas (KGR). At Schmidt Associates, using Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a standard practice for all of our projects. We see the direct benefits it has on reducing errors and saving costs for our Owners. It […]

Hands-On Healthcare Education

What makes a successful learning environment for training much-needed healthcare providers? Facilities geared toward experiential learning! Students today must learn differently while new information is being generate faster than ever before. Designers of healthcare teaching facilities are tasked with creating flexible, experiential learning environments to fulfill this need, and Schmidt Associates has worked with many […]

Q&A Session with Matt Durbin

Matt Durbin, Technology Designer and Information Systems (IS) Manager, has taken an interesting path to land where he is today. Below, we journey along that path with him.         Where did you go to school? I attended Olney College, majoring in General Studies and playing first base on their baseball team. And […]

Clash Detection: Protecting your Budget and Timeline

What is Clash Detection? Clash Detection software integrates with BIM/Revit design tools, showing the designers and contractors when two or more objects are intersecting and by how much. The software exports a location and physical image of the detected intersection, so you will see the actual conflicting pipes, duct runs, wires, etc. that need to […]

The Interactive Classroom

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times. Technology is constantly changing how we function at home, in the workplace, around town, in school, and just about everywhere else in the world. In this blog, we are going to focus on one way we’ve see classroom technology is evolving to fit the needs […]

The Evolution of a Meeting

Since the beginning of social civilization, people have held meetings in some form or another. One could argue the first “meetings” were held around a campfire, discussing a tribes’ plans for the next season and where they would move. Over time, as humans settled and formed cities, these meetings moved into a room. The technological […]