Find Your Path | Women in Architecture

FIND YOUR PATH

BLUESTONE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Harrisonburg City Public Schools

Bluestone Elementary School Harrisonburg City Public Schools

Kelly Callahan, AIA served as the project architect for Bluestone Elementary School in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The design of Bluestone Elementary School embraces cultural diversity while highlighting the relationship between the school and its global context – helping students relate to the larger world while feeling part of a community designed just for them.

Kelly Callahan, AIA / Find Your Path

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How would you describe your process?

Immersive site visits and analysis to fall in love with the possibilities of a place. Then hand drawings and napkin sketches (often overlapping in plan, section and axon) of massing, orientation, and a generous attitude toward the site opportunities. The constraints inevitably pare down the possibilities and hone the ideas over time.

Kelly Callahan, AIA / Find Your Path

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Where do you draw your inspiration?

Nature is endlessly inspirational. Specifically, long walks in local forests. Organic textures, light quality, topography, view portals, natural materials and seasonal color palettes all influence my work.

Kelly Callahan, AIA / Find Your Path

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What are you currently working on?

An innovative high school work force trades and STEM academy. It’s a community partnership to train the next generation of craftspeople. We’re transforming a 1971 school building into raw and dynamic lab spaces that encourage hands-on exploration, creation and yes, failure. We all learn best from our mistakes.

Kelly Callahan, AIA / Find Your Path

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What’s your best advice for designers today?

Our work always starts with an immediate problem, but our solutions must also strive for higher long-term goals; promoting health and community and conservation and inclusivity. It’s our job to discover and exploit the opportunities of each project, and to create a place with lasting identity and meaning.

Kelly Callahan, AIA / Find Your Path

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LUBBER RUN COMMUNITY CENTER Arlington County Parks and Recreation

Lubber Run Community Center

Arlington County Parks and Recreation

Nina Comiskey, AIA has been a key member of the Lubber Run Community Center team, supporting every aspect of the project to date. In particular, she contributed a variety of tactile and facilitated methods of engaging the Arlington community in a series of hands-on public workshops intended to gather cross-generational and inter-disciplinary voices in order to promote equity, access, public health, and sustainable design

Nina Comiskey, AIA / Find Your Path

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How would you describe your process?

Rigorous research and analysis of the physical and societal structures that define the site. Generating ‘big ideas’ of what we could accomplish on the site and with the building.

Applying program and massing to the physical constraints of the site, using the ‘big idea’ as the guide. The design is then sharpened through multiple iterations and feedback.

Nina Comiskey, AIA / Find Your Path

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Where do you draw your inspiration?

The people who inhabit the spaces we create inspire me.

Involving the community of users and neighbors allows their voices to shape the inspiration and ‘big idea’ of the building.

During the Lubber Run Community process it became clear that open space and a strong connection to nature and the adjacent park were important. At the same time it was the interior spaces and functionality that were important to the users of the community center, who come from all over Arlington county. Integrating those desires inspired the community rooms centered around a quiet courtyard overlooking the wooden hillside and the active gym track at the level of large open park space.

Nina Comiskey, AIA / Find Your Path

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What’s your best advice for designers today?

Always start with the highest ideals – aesthetic, social and sustainable. We should be the spearhead in pushing the boundaries of what our projects can be. We shouldn’t be the ones limiting ourselves – plenty of other people and forces will take care of that.

Nina Comiskey, AIA / Find Your Path

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CONTEMPLATIVE SCIENCES CENTER University of Virginia

Contemplative Sciences Center University of Virginia

Lauren Shumate, AIA, WELL AP is serving as a Project Designer for UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center, which is being designed in association with Aidlin Darling Design. Still in the early phases of design, the project strives to be iconic while also suited for UVA’s distinctive Grounds, and constitute experiential opportunities in the interior spaces and exterior gardens aligned with UVA’s goals of innovation, creativity, and well-being.

Lauren Shumate, AIA, Well AP / Find Your Path

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How would you describe your process?

I enjoy working back and forth between scales when approaching a design problem. Sketching the big concept and then zooming into a detail of a connection or handrail to see how one might inform the other. Then after developing many options, challenging assumptions and soliciting feedback from team members is essential. On this project we worked closely alongside talented designers at Aidlin Darling to develop a design that was both unique and contextual.

Lauren Shumate, AIA, Well AP / Find Your Path

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Where do you draw your inspiration?

I draw inspiration both from the surrounding context as well as the narratives of our clients and future users. On this project, inspiration abounded in the adjacent campus landscape, the wellness mission, and a natural material palette.

Lauren Shumate, AIA, Well AP / Find Your Path

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What’s your best advice for designers today?

Design is a team sport. Understand how you can make your contribution but seek out (and trust) the expertise of your team of fellow designers, engineers, and specialists.

Lauren Shumate, AIA, Well AP / Find Your Path

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VMDO Architects 200 E Market St Charlottesville, Va 22902 434.296.5684 vmdo.com