June 19, 2019

The Consortium for Design and Education Outcomes (CDEO), a research collaboration between global architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman and Drexel University, is pleased to announce that collaboration is a recipient of a landmark grant that will help fund research to address how high-quality buildings can positively impact education outcomes. The Latrobe Prize, named for architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, is awarded biennially by the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) College of Fellows for a two-year program of research leading to significant advances in the architecture profession. The $100,000 award will enable the team to work with two large school districts, Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD, to assess indoor environmental quality, educational adequacy and community impact in modernized and non-modernized schools to draw direct connections between the built environment, student and staff satisfaction, and education outcomes. This will inform a set of tools and design guidelines that will provide architects and school districts with means to assess their own facilities and access actionable interventions that have a demonstrably positive impact on education outcomes. 

Led by co-Principal Investigators Sean O’Donnell, FAIA, LEED AP, Perkins Eastman’s K12 Practice Leader and Bruce Levine, JD, Associate Clinical Professor at Drexel University’s School of Education, CDEO has formed an interdisciplinary team to conduct his research. The team includes Drexel’s School of Education and Public Health, as well as the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design’s Department of Architecture, Design & Urbanism—including Architecture program director Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis, Dr.-Ing. Architektin (AK BW), AIA—and the American Federation of Teachers.

Learn more about the prize and the CDEO on AIA's website.