Q&A: The Importance of Visioning

Lutherwood Children’s Mental Health Centre is a transformative facility for children aged 12 to 17.But the building’s existing structures, developed between the 1960s and 1980s, were ill-suited for modern treatment approaches. With the feedback from vision sessions with key stakeholders, Stantec designed a new 16,500 sf addition that is more in line with Lutherwood’s philosophical approach to care: It is welcoming, filled with natural light, and focuses on the reduction of client anxiety and de-stigmatization of mental health treatment. Here, two key members of the team, Greg Romanick, client liaison, and Barbara Miszkiel, project manager and principal architect, reflect on the process of visioning.

Visioning was used to develop the open design
of the Lutherwood Children's Mental Health Centre

Q: What exactly is a visioning session?

Greg: Visioning is a process wherein a group of people with a stake or an interest in a project come together to share their thoughts and ideas about what that project will look like—what it will be—when it’s complete. The expression of ideas for a vision should be in the form of a verbalized visual picture, but it can and should include elements of verbal expression around principles, goals, values, and so forth.

Barbara: These sessions are about everyone breaking down barriers and thinking outside of the box. People come out with what is deep within their hearts to share what they ideally see for their project. The ideas from these brainstorming sessions will establish principles and guidelines that are later used as benchmarks to develop the design form concept to detail.

Q: Why are these sessions important to a project’s outcome?

Barbara: They establish the principles and guidelines to develop a concept into reality. So you start with the big picture, but you add a layer of rationale and rigor so the ideas don’t get lost in the detail. It’s how a whole community or group can get together and express what the project means to them and then be able to turn that idealism into three-dimensional space.

Greg: I agree. The vision should be the elements of that future-state picture, which are commonly held by most, if not all, of the participants. There’s a certain power and a momentum created through the vision, precisely because it’s commonly shared. Typically, this power and momentum result in a smoother realization of the vision over time.

Barbara: It’s a bonding exercise. By having a group express their ideals, where they see the project going, you get buy in and camaraderie, a collaborative spirit, and that’s all part of that momentum. We saw that at Lutherwood, from the first session right through until the opening of the building. The vision was not lost. You can see it, not only in the final building, but in the users and their reactions to how their vision was translated into bricks and mortar.

Q: What priorities did the visioning session for the Lutherwood project generate?

Barbara: A big part was the notion of breaking down barriers, creating transparency and normalizing mental health care. That notion of transparency also relates to a recovery model of care, the whole idea that these kids are there for one, two, three, or maybe four years, but care should be delivered to help them successfully transition back into the community afterward. So the addition is open, transparent, warm, and non-institutional as a result. So there’s transparency the moment you enter the main entrance right through to the gardens and soccer fields beyond. That whole spirit of optimism is carried out through uplifting physical features, like the double-high open space when you first come in.

The notion of transparency was a key outcome
of the visioning sessions.

Q: Do visioning sessions work best for a particular type of project?

Greg: Many, if not all, projects can get a lot of value and power out of visioning, whether related to whole cities, areas of cities, or a building. In every session I’ve been involved in I’ve been really struck by how the outcome reflected the vision and the fact that having that vision made it much easier to achieve that “visioned” outcome.

Barbara: From an architectural perspective, we learn in school that it’s all about the vision. If you don’t have a vision at first, any building design can become like a hodgepodge lodge. The vision creates not only the beacon that you’re going toward, but also a conversation throughout the design. I would say it’s important for all kinds of buildings. A lot of development falls short because it lacks a vision. Our society is building a visionless sea of condos with a lack of public/retail space at grade, missing the opportunity to create neighborhoods at street level.

Q: How did the vision for Lutherwood influence the project on an ongoing basis?

Barbara: For example, all the laminated glazing on the second floor was going to go by the wayside during construction. There was a proposal to have drywall with punched windows instead. But that would have eliminated the openness and sense of transparency we wanted to achieve. So the vision would have been seriously compromised.

Q: How common are visioning sessions for projects?

Barbara: They’re common from an architect’s perspective, but they’re not really successful unless it’s treated as a specific task in the process. If it’s too informal and just innate within the design process, it’s not as successful because you don’t have the entire community creating it and, therefore, buying into it. Your design is only as good as the clarity of the vision that comes out of those early sessions. They get the project started off on the right foot.

Greg: Visioning processes are less common for projects that don’t involve professional architects. Saying that, we are seeing more and more efforts by public bodies and businesses to create vision statements to breathe direction and life into projects at their inception.

Making a Difference in Honduras: Engineers Without Borders

Submitted by Andrew D. Eiland, Jr., PE, Project Engineer, Civil Engineering (Sarasota, Florida)

Andew, right, surveys the progress
on his team's efforts in Honduras

A few years ago I found myself stretched a little thin by some of the “extra-curriculars” (as I’d come to think of them) that I thought were mandatory to my being a good corporate citizen and, let’s face it, climbing the corporate ladder at record pace as my reward for it. I served on an advisory board and did some pretty involved stuff with my professional society, but I found myself unable to articulate the “why” of what I was doing, both for myself or the people affected by it. Just about that time, I heard about Engineers without Borders (EWB) USA, and it wasn’t long before I was diving in head first, helping to grow a recently founded local chapter, and eventually heading up the first project for the group.

Like most projects that come to EWB, this opportunity came from US Peace Corps volunteers already on the ground. We were asked to apply our expertise to help out in the small Honduran village of Segovia—home to some 450 people. Our mission was to deliver something all of us take very much for granted—a safe and secure water supply. The only source of water for the villagers was a hand-excavated open pit well. Not surprisingly, illnesses attributable to water-borne pathogens were common.

After visits to Segovia in 2009 to meet with local officials, assess the situation in person, and survey the site, the project was briefly delayed by political unrest in Honduras. Meanwhile, our team of five developed plans for a system to make use of a new well with a modern pump, an overhead storage tank, and a distribution system to carry water to each of the community’s approximately 75 dwellings.

Once travel restrictions were lifted, we returned to oversee construction. The villagers provided the vast majority of the sweat equity. Under guidance from the team and Peace Corps staff, the villagers dug over a kilometer of trenches into which the distribution piping was laid.

The village of Segovia

My primary challenge was managing lots of moving parts, including training the local residents in the operation, maintenance, and repair of their new water distribution system. Although our Peace Corps contact and one member of the team spoke Spanish, the rest of us made due with a 50-word vocabulary centered primarily on installation of PVC pipe, and hand gestures. The enthusiasm and dedication of the villagers was inspiring; they refused to let us pick up a shovel or a pick axe. Their hospitality as they fed us each day we worked was also welcome. We were given a beautiful home-cooked meal in a different home in the community each day.

While the engineering involved with this project was fairly straightforward, the complexity of the assignment was anything but, involving fundraising, approvals, cost estimates, and coordination with local officials, a missionary group, and the Peace Corps. And, just to keep it interesting, dealing with the political impact of a bloodless “coup” in the middle of the project.

I think what impressed me most about this experience with EWB was meeting people who have next to nothing by our standards, but realizing they are some of the happiest people in the world. And it is especially rewarding to see the impact our project has had to date—health data surveys have already documented a significant decrease in skin rashes and other water-borne illnesses.

My work with EWB has delivered what I sought: an immense sense of satisfaction in knowing I made a difference. So much so, in fact, that we’re currently planning our next project—improving the village’s drainage to alleviate standing water during the rainy season.

To see more photos of Segovia and Andrew's experience there, visit Stantec's Facebook page.

Grounds for Recycling

Submitted by Louie Greenwell, GIS service area leader (Louisville, KY)

It’s time to brew another pot of coffee. The brew basket and the used grounds are still remaining from the last pot. Instead of tossing the used grounds into the trash, take a second and consider reusing them. Yes, that’s right; those soggy coffee grounds are good for much more than providing you with a shot of energy.

Here’s why.

Shortly after moving into our new Louisville, Kentucky office in May, I began collecting the used coffee grounds and recycling them. Every other week, I collect approximately 30 pounds of used coffee and tea grounds between the two coffee stations in our building. I take home the grounds to help fuel my compost bin, which also includes various biodegradable kitchen and yard waste. Once ready, I use the composted material to feed my vegetable garden, which has grown to roughly 850 square feet in size.

Composting bounty!

I have been gardening for the last 15 years and usually grow enough vegetables during the summer and fall to feed my family and neighbors. Overflow veggies also find their way in the Louisville office break room. This past summer, I was able to bring hot peppers, okra, green beans, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers and watermelons to the Stantec table. Some of the other crops that made up my bountiful harvest this year included corn, sweet potatoes, broccoli and Napa cabbage.

I really enjoy growing food and sharing with others; it’s been a part of my family for generations and a part of my life since childhood. As a child, I spent summers on my grandmother’s farm in Springfield, Kentucky, helping her tend to various crops including her massive strawberry patch. I can still remember working in the garden for hours on end with my grandmother, but it didn’t seem like work at the time. As a teenager, I also worked for several years as a produce clerk at a grocery store. I never really thought about it before, but I guess I have always been a farmer at heart.

A sample compost bin

That includes turning an office coffee addiction into free fertilizer. At our current rate of consumption, the Louisville office will generate over a ton of grounds in under three years! Instead of going to the landfill never to be used again, the composted material goes back into the ground, recharges the soil nutrients and ultimately ends up back in the break room to feed the office – win, win, win! I am hopeful next year’s harvest will be bigger and better than the last. Not to worry though; I have no plans to leave my day job for the glamour and riches of farming. I’ll leave the real farming to the professionals.