In our tagline—designing joyful places for social change—Grace saw a reflection of her own future-focused mindset and commitment to creating real impact. With more than two decades of experience in K–12 and community college design, she joins us as Director of Education with a perspective rooted in possibility.
For Grace and us, creating opportunity is essential to education design. That comes from focusing on people to understand their needs today and years into the future. Grace’s arrival marks not just a leadership addition, but an evolution of our shared beliefs.
For Grace, the work is personal.
Grace brings that human-centered focus and purpose-driven approach to every project. For her, the most rewarding moments come from seeing students thrive in the spaces we’ve helped create “Seeing that they can grow, play, and connect,” she says. “That’s really meaningful for me.”
A moment earlier in her career brought that to clarity, when she led the team that designed Collegewood Elementary’s STEAM building—the school her children attended—during her time at DC Architects. The project replaced aging portable classrooms with a permanent, daylight-filled structure that reclaimed outdoor space for student use and integrated sustainability features into the learning experience.
“I was lucky,” she says. “Designing the school my kids attended made the mission deeply personal. I love being given a mission and bringing value to people through a distinct vision. For me, value, mission, and vision all come from the same place.”
Connection is at the heart of our shared approach.
The belief that design is a vehicle for connection is especially important now, unlocking new potential for students and districts. Grappling with declining enrollment, budget constraints, and a shifting educational landscape, the physical spaces we create must do more. “As I’ve seen through my son, high school students don’t want to come back to school unless they feel it offers something they can’t get elsewhere,” Grace explains. “That something is connection. We need to turn schools into places where students want to be.”
Through her participation on the Discovery Building at Santa Monica High School while at HED, Grace saw the design team create a flexible, student-centered environment that became more than just a place to learn. Students now gravitate there to connect and build community.
She envisions schools that operate more like community hubs where students can work, gather, and just be, even if they’re not speaking to each other. “That’s still connection,” she says. “That’s still how students build a sense of belonging.” For Grace, that reaffirmed what’s possible when we embrace design as a tool both for and reflective of social change.
Opportunity extends beyond the classroom.
Grace has a strong understanding of the systems and relationships that shape education in our region. With long-standing partnerships with a number of Districts, Grace deepens our place-based approach and helps us expand on our ongoing goal to serve communities across the full Southern California landscape. That sense of possibility reaches beyond traditional learning environments into emerging areas, like how housing and education intersect.
"Because we also have a housing sector, we’re in a strong position to support districts thinking more holistically," she says. "Workforce housing is no longer a side conversation. It’s central to how districts retain faculty, serve low-income families, and use underutilized land in smart, equitable ways."
As school districts explore workforce housing to address affordability and faculty retention, Grace knows that’s a key part of bringing more kids back to school. However, she knows that’s only part of the problem, and that today’s education sector requires a holistic approach.
Designing for what comes next.
This future-focused lens also fuels Grace’s passion for Career Technical Education (CTE). As the education landscape shifts, the design of schools needs to prepare students for what’s ahead.
“We need to be designing for the future of learning, not just the present. That includes anticipating how students interact with technology and each other in a 21st-century world.”
Her previous work, completed during her tenure as project manager at HED, on El Modena High School’s Science Building in Orange Unified School District reflects that. Designed to support flexible, interdisciplinary learning across science, biology, and math, the two-story facility features 12 adaptable, tech-ready labs and a welcoming outdoor gathering space that acts as an academic and social hub. It’s the kind of adaptable infrastructure that helps students build both technical and interpersonal skills.
“No matter what type of architectural style, imagination, creativity, and possibility are unlimited, ”Grace says. “The programming, the ideas, the pedagogies—those are all unlimited.”
When we design with that mindset, we offer students and communities futures.
The right culture at the right time.
At Practice, Grace sees a team aligned with that belief. “This is a great place for people to be seen and for ideas to be heard,” she says. “Everything you do will be magnified. That kind of culture, that kind of shared mission, is what I was looking for.”
We’re thrilled to welcome Grace to the team and evolve our education work across Southern California.
Explore how this vision is already taking shape in our recent education projects.
