Classroom 3510 G: Hollis + Miller & Hertz Furniture | The Middle Ground: Designing for Transition

Goal:

Reimagining existing middle school learning environments without a major renovation can allow students to feel more fully supported as they navigate the trials and tribulations of an academically, social-emotionally and physically challenging time. Focusing on core middle school classrooms and collaborative spaces, this project examines how furniture strategies can address the realities of existing environments while influencing student behavior, engagement, and teacher instruction. Working closely with North Kansas City Schools, we developed prototypes to explore how students transitioning between elementary and high school experience space differently and how classrooms can balance structure with age-appropriate independence.

Focus:

Since furniture is often a very visible and impactful investment when budgets are limited, we focused on flexible strategies across three key middle school spaces:

• General education classrooms: moving beyond the traditional front-facing teaching model toward multiple work settings to encourage movement, choice, and autonomy.
• Special education classrooms: designing for the least restrictive environment through varied, sensory-conscious settings balancing structure with flexibility.
• Collaborative/differentiated spaces: repurposing underused areas (like a media center) into destination learning zones for independent work, small group collaboration, and project-based learning.

Impact:

By aligning furniture, spatial configuration, and technology purposefully, we can foster diverse instructional approaches, accommodate different learning styles, and meet the evolving needs of middle school students in a unique developmental stage. A variety of furniture types and heights provide students with greater autonomy in selecting the learning setting that best supports their needs, fostering both independence and active participation throughout the school day for both students and teachers. By encouraging movement, collaboration, and choice, we can support increased focus and engagement as well as increased inclusion and confidence for special education students.

Furniture Partners:

• Hertz Furniture (dealer) 
• Paragon
• KI
• Fomcore
• WB Manufacturing
• Moore Co. 

Flooring Partners: 

• Interface Flooring
• FDC Contract

District Partner:

• North Kansas City Schools