Wellness by Design: Rethinking Educational Spaces CEU Course

Katie Shima, Senior Architect, and Tanya Gershon, Director, are bringing a conversation about wellness in school design to architects and designers. Their HSW continuing education course, “Wellness by Design: Rethinking Educational Spaces,” is now available online through NeoCon Hub until December 31, 2026. 

Tanya and Katie built the session around our Bentonville Schools Downtown Master Plan in Bentonville, Arkansas. They present a model for educational environments where learning spaces support students’ physical, social, and emotional health. The plan brings together flexible class clusters, outdoor learning terraces, and shared social and arts spaces, all with strong connections to the surrounding city. Community partnerships are woven into the curriculum, so the city itself becomes part of how students learn. This course shows what it looks like when a plan puts well-being first.

The ideas Tanya and Katie share grow out of work we have done for over three decades. In public libraries, higher education buildings, and cultural spaces, we design for the people who use these places every day and for the communities around them. The Bentonville plan carries that thinking into schools. It shows how architecture can strengthen whole-child wellness and position schools as vital civic infrastructure, not only places for instruction.

The course is open to architects, designers, and anyone interested in how educational spaces shape the health of the people inside them. Take “Wellness by Design: Rethinking Educational Spaces” on NeoCon Hub, and learn more about the Bentonville Schools Downtown Master Plan on our project page.