Treanor Talks: Architecture, Planning & Design

How can schools create safer environments without sacrificing the sense of belonging and connection that helps students thrive?

In this episode of Ed Talks, a Treanor Talks series, Treanor Principal Patrick Johnson sits down with Dr. Leslie Nichols, superintendent of Gunnison Watershed School District in Colorado, to explore how community input helped shape the district’s 2022 bond program and its vision for the future of its schools.

Dr. Nichols shares how years of listening to students, families, educators, and community members helped the district identify its priorities: improving school safety and security, modernizing aging building systems, and creating flexible, student-centered learning environments. The conversation explores how thoughtful school design can establish clear and secure boundaries while maintaining the welcoming character that makes schools an important part of their communities.

Patrick and Leslie also discuss the district’s new and renovated career and technical education spaces, lessons learned from a years-long community engagement process, and why listening—especially to people who disagree—can lead to stronger projects and greater consensus.

For school leaders, communities, and anyone working with an education architect or school architect on future facility improvements, this conversation offers practical insights into building trust, navigating competing priorities, and designing schools that serve students and communities for generations.

Hear how a collaborative process between a Colorado school district, its community, and the Treanor Colorado architect team helped turn shared priorities into safer, more connected places for learning.

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

In this episode of Treanor Talks’ Ed Talks series, Treanor PK-12 Education architect Kelly Denker sits down with Aspen Calvillo, Principal of Roosevelt Middle School, to discuss how a former high school was transformed into a modern, future-ready middle school.

They explore the school’s design vision, challenges, and the power of adaptive reuse in middle school architecture and design. Aspen shares insights on renovating a 1960s building, expanding CTE offerings, navigating budget constraints, and how flexible learning environments like grade-level Learning Commons have reshaped student learning.

Whether you’re an educator, designer, planner, or community member, this conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at creating schools that truly support the way students learn today.

🔗 Learn more at www.treanor.design.

Topics covered:

00:00 — Intro: Welcome to Treanor Talks
00:25 — Meet Principal Aspen Calvillo
01:15 — Why the District Needed a New Middle School
02:31 — CTE and Elective Programs at Roosevelt
04:00 — Reusing Roosevelt High School as the New Middle School
04:23 — Starting the Design Process & Early Challenges
06:05 — The Design Advisory Group (DAG)
06:55 — Establishing Priorities: Community, CTE, and Commons Space
08:56 — Creating the Heart of the School: The New Commons
09:23 — User Groups, Dreams, and Budget Realities
10:01 — Blending Old and New During Renovation
11:38 — What It’s Like Running a School During Construction
13:10 — Favorite Spaces & Surprises After Move-In
15:31 — Staff Adaptation & Learning Studio Culture
17:43 — How Learning Commons Are Being Used Today
19:01 — Aspen’s Advice for Schools Facing Renovation
22:52 — What’s Next for Roosevelt Middle School

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

Welcome to the first installment of our new Ed Talks series—dedicated to telling the stories of our PK-12 clients and how they're enriching students' education in their local communities.

What happens when a high school is designed around real-world learning, student passion, and community input? In this episode, Treanor PK-12 Education principal Scott Dangel talks with Rebecca Albert-Vollrath, Director of Career and Innovation at Weld RE-5J School District, about the transformation of Roosevelt High School into a fully integrated Career and Technical Education (CTE) campus.

They explore how listening to the community reshaped the project, how CTE can benefit all students—not just those headed straight to the workforce—and what it means to design with a mission as your top priority.

Topics covered:
 • What “fully integrated CTE” really looks like
 • How Roosevelt’s design connects pathways, staff, and students
 • Lessons learned from designing flexible, future-ready spaces
 • Advice for school leaders considering CTE

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

Mental health is one critical component of our overall wellness and ability to live a healthy and fulfilling life. According to the National Institute of Mental Health Disorders, 1 in 4 American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, and many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time.

From the hospital we’re born in, to the schools we attend, to the home we live in, the spaces we inhabit for most hours of the day affect our mental health. In this episode, principals from several of Treanor’s design studios take a deep dive into a few of these different building types and uncover how they can affect our mental health.

In this episode, we hear from:

• Steve Carr, principal in our Health studio
• Jeff Lane, principal in our Justice studio

Learn more about the projects referenced throughout:

• Springfield PK-12 School
• Clear Creek County Health and Wellness Center
• Douglas County Treatment and Recovery Center

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

Healthcare is a critical part of our lives, and access to quality care can, in a worst-case scenario, be the differentiating factor between life and death. In the best-case scenario, quality and holistic healthcare keeps us out of the hospital and in the places and activities where we thrive.

In rural communities, barriers such as access and connectivity can affect how and when patients receive care. TreanorHL had the opportunity to recently work with two clients on new rural healthcare facilities to help support their communities with the care they need. With two different geographies, communities, and needs, we wanted to discuss their insights into ways these new critical access healthcare facilities are helping support their patients.

To discuss this topic, Treanor Health principals Curtis Hendershott and Mike Hagan join this episode, along with Dr. Timothy Ryan, the public and environmental health director of Clear Creek County in Idaho Springs, Colorado, and Dave Garnas, administrator at the North Central Kansas Medical Center in Concordia, Kansas.

Learn more about the projects referenced in this episode:

• Cloud County North Central Kansas Medical Center
• Clear Creek County Health and Wellness Center

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

As architects and designers, we’re often asked questions about creating new spaces and buildings or preserving hundred-year-old buildings. It’s less often that our role in rebuilding after disasters is discussed in classrooms and newspapers. But this is a critical role we can play to help families and businesses recover after their lives and livelihoods are upended.

On this episode, we catch up with Pendleton's Country Market owners Karen and John Pendleton to discuss their experience recovering from an EF-4 tornado that ripped through their farm in Lawrence, Kansas, in May of 2019. Joy Coleman, principal and architect at Treanor, assisted the Pendletons with assessment and renovations after the tornado and joins this episode to talk more about the project.

Architects have the opportunity to serve as emergency second responders by certifying as disaster assessment professionals through the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, which is the national standard for certifying architects, engineers, and code and safety professionals to provide assessment reports. Will Robarge, an associate principal and architect at Treanor, is one of just a few certified trainers through Cal OES, and he is currently serving his third term on the AIA National Disaster Assessment Committee, which is tasked with educating architects and engineers to be able to prepare and respond when a disaster occurs. Will joins us on this episode to share more information about these initiatives.

Resources:

• View photos from weather events referenced throughout this episode
• How to make a disaster preparedness plan for you and your family
• FEMA 
• Red Cross 
• Cal OES
• AIA Disaster Assistance Program
• AIA Reoccupancy Assessment Tool
• AIA Disaster Assistance Handbook 

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

It’s National Preservation Month, and this year, we celebrate the importance of some of the lesser-known stories of underserved communities. Our historic preservation specialists Vance Kelley and Nancy Goldenberg join this episode to share stories about some of the special places they’ve worked on that define our history. From a community center built by Chinese pioneers to a church pastored by Oliver Brown of Brown v. Board of Education, buildings are amazing recordkeepers of our past. When taken care of, their structures and their stories can last far into the future. 

Learn more about the projects and resources referenced in this episode:

• St. Marks AME Church Restoration
• Rio Vista Community Center Rehabilitation
• The University of Texas at El Paso documentary about the braceros
• Manzanar Photography by Toyo Miyatake

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

We’ve all come to appreciate the physical places we use to socialize, learn, relax and ultimately go about our daily lives. For higher education students, the spaces they have access to can be critical to their education and growth as individuals. As design professionals, we wanted to talk about what these types of spaces are and how their design informs the intent, whether it be to tune in and socialize or tune out and study.

In this episode, we invited higher education clients to discuss the various spaces that support student success on their campuses. Treanor principals Tim Reynolds and Nadia Zhiri are joined by Caroline Bennett, Professor, Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas, and Matt Park, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Midwestern State University.

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

New student life buildings are fresh, exciting, and usually expensive. With the right plan, it’s both possible and economical to get the 21st-century building you want with the stock you currently have. All you need is space, a vision and strategies to stay on budget. 

In this episode, we caught up with Joe Stramberg, a principal in Treanor’s Higher Education studio, along with Cass Coughlin, the Director of Residential Life Administration at Emporia State University and Teresa Frederick, the Associate Director of Facilities Management at Missouri State University, to talk about these strategies and some interesting project history and fun facts along the way. 

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.

May is National Preservation Month, and we wanted to celebrate the importance of historic places and the heritage of these places and spaces that define our history and shape our future. TreanorHL provides planning and architectural design services for historic preservation projects—including restoration, rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. Our preservation specialists love what they do and go above and beyond to make sure historically significant buildings serve well into the future. 

To talk more about why we love historic preservation and what it means to us, we caught up with Vance Kelley, Nancy Goldenberg, Kim Butt, and Joy Coleman from Treanor’s Historic Preservation team. 

Learn more about projects referenced in this episode:

• Kansas Statehouse
• St. Marks AME Church Restoration

Treanor is a national architecture, planning, and design firm located in the United States. The company holds a firm belief in sharing resources and insights with professionals, clients, and building users to shape the space we use to live and grow as people. For more information, visit www.treanor.design.