Students wander the halls during their free periods, X-periods, and tutorials, looking for a place to study or hang out with friends. But, every space seems to be filled – the upper library with freshmen, the lower library with juniors and seniors, and the Huss Center with sophomores. Although these spaces generally provide the appropriate environments for students to study or talk with classmates, they get filled up with people very fast and those who aren’t there early enough usually don’t have anywhere else to go. With one of the largest high school classes that St. Paul Academy and Summit School has ever had, it’s been harder for students of every grade to find a designated spot where space is guaranteed to be available at anytime.

The class Design Thinking, taught by Upper School Science teacher Steve Heilig and US Spanish teacher Pam Starkey, has been working since the beginning of the semester on resolving problems that occur around school.

Junior Paul Watkins explained the process that the class goes through to uncover issues at school.

“We interview users, in this case students, to find out what their needs are and one of the things we noticed is that a lot of people don’t have a good place to study or to socialize and we thought that that could be improved,” Watkins said.

The class brainstormed ideas, also known as prototyping, for spaces in the school and looked into potential areas that could be available to students at anytime.

“What we did is we found spaces where we could fit furniture where we thought it would be a good space for people to study or socialize and we thought of ways those spaces could be improved,” Watkins said.

Recently, the class has been looking very closely at the Huss Center. The opening of the grand performing arts center has been put to good use, providing a stage for music ensembles and theater groups to perform, but the spaces available to students are limited.

“Right now we have about 60% of usable space not being used at all. We’ve had furniture taken away because they weren’t durable enough to be used in a school setting. ” Watkins said.

The class has also discussed and considered other spaces scattered around the school that could be turned into comfortable quiet study corners.

“There are some nooks and crannies all over the art wing [and] the third floor bridge between the Middle School and the Upper School,” Watkins said.

These conversations about limited space in school have brought up meaningful and critical questions such as “How can these spaces be abused?”, “How will students use this space?”, “How could these spaces be defined as unsafe for students?”. Knowing the answers to these questions will help students create safe environments for studying and socializing, but they also raise awareness about other conflicts in the school that can be resolved through the same process and mindset that Design Thinking has established.

“There are a lot of oversights and by actually interviewing the users of spaces [around school], we’re hoping that we can have a more lasting impact on how spaces are being used,” Watkins said.