Q: How much does the material treatment of a space, the walls, ceilings, and surfaces, determine whether it actually performs the way it was intended?

Dana Pucillo: It's foundational, and I think it's often underestimated. Designing effective third spaces requires more than furniture layouts and flexible programming. The materials chosen for walls, seating, and acoustic surfaces directly influence how students feel, collaborate, and engage. Acoustics are the clearest example. When sound is poorly managed, students lose the ability to sustain focus and concentration. Intrusive conversations, reverberant noise, and competing sound streams fragment workflows in ways that are hard to recover from. A space that acoustically supports deep work is one where students can actually think. Walls and ceilings need to be doing acoustic work, not just visual work. The good news is that acoustic solutions give designers a lot of tools to get that balance right.

Q: Education clients have some of the tightest budgets in commercial construction. How do you make the case for investing in acoustic and material performance at the specification stage?

Cyndie: The lifecycle argument is the one that resonates most. When a school system is comparing a lower upfront cost against a solution that degrades in two years and needs to be replaced, the math changes quickly. High-performance woven solutions, for example, engineer durability into the yarn itself rather than relying on applied surface coatings. That means abrasion resistance, cleanability, and colorfastness hold up through years of constant use without the maintenance cycle that cheaper alternatives require. In education environments, where facilities teams are stretched thin and replacement budgets are unpredictable, total cost of ownership is a much more honest metric than initial specification cost. 

Q: You mentioned cleanability. How has that specification requirement evolved, particularly for soft surfaces and upholstery in high-traffic student spaces?

Cyndie: Facilities managers want to know that a surface can be cleaned with nothing more than water or a diluted bleach solution — no specialty products, no re-application of protective coatings. What's interesting is that this requirement is driving better design outcomes, because the materials that meet those standards tend to be inherently more durable and better engineered overall.

Q: There's growing emphasis on healthy materials in institutional construction: Red List Free, PFAS-free, PVC-free specifications. Is that filtering into education projects?

Dana: It has to, because students spend long hours in these spaces, and material transparency and healthy chemistry are a baseline expectation. As campuses rethink their role, wellness has become a core design priority. PVC-free, PFAS-free, and Red List Free materials allow designers to meet stringent sustainability and wellness criteria without trade-offs in performance. These choices reinforce trust, safety, and long-term stewardship in environments dedicated to human growth.

Q: Looking at the built environment holistically, what does a well-designed educational third space get right that a poorly designed one misses?

Dana: The ones that work have solved for the full sensory environment, not just the visual one. Acoustics are controlled as a primary specification, not an afterthought. The materials have texture, warmth, and tactility. Students can feel that a space was designed for them. There's durability you can see, surfaces that still look intentional after years of heavy use. The best third spaces are sensorial. Texture, pattern, and tactility help students feel grounded. That sensory richness reduces stress and supports a wide range of learners. 

Q: As AI continues to reshape how students access information and engage with coursework, what role do you see the physical campus playing over the next decade?

Cyndie:  The schools that get this right will have a real advantage. Students who can learn from anywhere will still choose to show up when the physical experience offers something a screen can't. That comes down to how well the spaces are designed for human presence, not just human traffic. It's on the design and construction community to make sure those spaces actually deliver. The decisions being made right now, about surfaces, acoustics, and material quality, will determine whether campuses rise to that moment or miss it.