Media + Press //Articles K-12 Insights: Using Design to Meet Student’s Emotional and Physical Needs By Steve Hoekzema. What type of environments best enable learning to take place? What ingredients create the best spaces for children to grow, seek, and explore? K-12 Director Steve Hoekzema, AIA, explores these questions and looks for ways that design can help meet student’s need for inclusion and belonging. K-12 Insights: Designing for Safer Schools: Implementing CPTED in School Design By: Steve Hoekzema. The safety and security of students and staff are always topics of discussion when designing K-12 school buildings. Our design team utilizes the principles of CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) to ensure safety is integrated into all aspects of the school building. Read more about CPTED and how we use natural surveillance, natural access control, territoriality reinforcement, and management to create safe and welcoming schools. Advanced Manufacturing Facility // Process Improvement Authored by Marika Hawes-Ruhrup. The Lean Six Sigma process is a disciplined, data-driven approach and method for eliminating defects in the process – which is always our goal at TowerPinkster. Learn more from our in-house Lean expert and project manager, Marika Hawes-Ruhrup in our Advanced Manufacturing Series. Advanced Manufacturing Series // Specialty Engineering With over 440 miles of building wire, 30 miles of piping used in plumbing and HVAC systems, and more than an acre of snowmelt, the Stryker Instruments project was no small feat. Jon Rumohr, Manager of Mechanical Engineering, shares about specialty engineering in our Advanced Manufacturing Series. Radiant Heating, Displacement Ventilation Create Airport Comfort TowerPinkster engineers, Ryan Idema, PE, and Jesse Hendershot, PE, were recently recognized for their work on the Gerald R. Ford International Airport Consolidated Checkpoint. Read more about their efforts to capitalize upon energy efficiency, indoor air quality and temperature comfort, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact in their published article in the ASHRAE Journal. Advanced Manufacturing Series // Phasing Strategy Is it critical to remain operational during the renovation and expansion of your existing facility, or will production shift to another one of your facilities? Adam Doubblestein, Principal, discusses logical phasing strategies to keep your business operational during renovation and expansion efforts. Advanced Manufacturing Series // Expedited Schedule We recently helped an industrial client move from design to completion in 12 months. Learn more about working with an accelerated schedule with Jason Novotny, Director of Design. Advanced Manufacturing Series // Concept Design How does the conceptual design process work? We start with a thorough immersion into our clients’ process flow and operations. Dive deeper with Adam Doubblestein, Principal, in the Advanced Manufacturing Series. Advanced Manufacturing Series // Site Selection What should industrial and manufacturing companies look for when moving locations or expanding operations? From planning for future growth to finding ways for employees to connect with nature, Jason Novotny, Director of Design, walks us through key considerations for site selection in our step by step Advanced Manufacturing Series. Back to School Safely Our team has been working on strategies around how to create an educational environment that supports social distancing and healthy learning spaces. Return to Work Strategies Our team has been working on strategies around how to create a working environment that supports social distancing and collaborative growth and development. Prefabrication and Healthcare Space: Issues and Opportunities In the recent years, healthcare systems have shifted operations to focus on patient experience, speed to market, and cost control. These changes have resulted in a paradigm shift in facility planning, design, and construction. The traditional “hospital-grade” clinical inpatient facility has developed into “front-line” outpatient facilities in the community. This shift has been shown to support overall patient population wellness, patient recruitment and retention, and reduce costs incurred by acute care. By making a broader range of services available to the community, patients can get treatment before their conditions require a hospital-based service. This move to prevention and increased care earlier helps to control the cost of healthcare. Workplace Community Through Flexibility and Engagement Since our founding, TowerPinkster has focused on designing workspaces that are innovative and inspiring. We have witnessed the shift from the “closed door” private office culture of the mid-20th century through the “cube farms” of the 1980s and 1990s, to the transition to open office environments over the past twenty years. Through these changes, we have found commonalities in successful workplace design. It has been our experience that regardless of industry, our clients are creating spaces that are flexible, engaging, and focused on fostering the development of work communities and collaboration.
