Classroom design has come a long way since the rows of desks and drab colors of the past. But according to many experts gathered in Columbus last week for EDspaces, there are challenging “holes in the bucket,” issues preventing schools and students from tapping fully into the industry’s design expertise.
Few of the barriers to creating great classrooms are the fault of design. Instead, great educational design is hampered by anemic school funding, school administrators who would rather take the path of least resistance than innovate and, yes, designers who take a cookie cutter approach instead of pushing new ideas forward.
Great educational design is happening, but it is not consistent across the board, said Lennie Scott-Webber, an industry consultant and owner of INSYNC: Education Research + Design. While schools received a boost in funding during COVID to help with facilities, much of that has dried up, returning to pre-pandemic levels, or even dropping. Budgets always seem to be tight in school districts where hard decisions need to be made. And even if schools do have money to improve facilities, it is a mixed blessing for teachers, who are all for better classrooms, but not if it comes at the expense of a living wage.
That’s why EDspaces is so important. It is a forum for educational space designers to come together with school and college administrators and educators to explore ideas that will revolutionize classrooms and ultimately, improve educational outcomes.
“It must be about the students,” said Scott-Webber, who formerly lead Steelcase’s Education Furniture division. “Spaces can have a positive or negative impact on education. We’re here to make sure it is positive.”
EDspaces is a three-day event that includes deep educational sessions for designers and educations along with an exposition where manufacturers show off the latest furniture, technology and services for K-12 and higher education. The event has evolved and grown. It was founded by EDmarket, a non-profit trade association that serves the educational products and services industry by connecting manufacturers, dealers, designers and educators to foster innovation and improve learning environments. Its mission is to drive positive change in education through advocacy, events like EDspaces, professional development and initiatives focused on student-centered design and learning spaces. A few years ago, the show was sold to Emerald Expositions.
EDmarket is evolving as well. EDmarket is joining forces with the Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) to create a powerful new association dedicated to reimagining where and how students learn. By uniting the expertise of two respected leaders in the education industry, the hope is this merger will accelerate innovation and expand opportunities to design learning spaces that inspire, engage and empower students. The merger is expected to be complete by the end of 2026.
“Together, we have the power to reimagine learning environments worldwide, strengthening our voice, expanding impact, and enriching the knowledge that shapes spaces where students learn. By uniting our leaders, members, and staff, we can inspire greater success for every student,” said EDmarket chairwoman Darlene Akers.
EDspaces also included local facility tours and educational opportunities, called EDsessions that covered topics as diverse as deaf education design, campus master planning, technical education and designing to elevate human experience in the age of AI, to name just a few.
There were also four interactive classroom design areas where attendees could get a glimpse of how experts see school design evolving: “Discovering Joy” by DLR Group; “Exploration Zones: Experiential and Flexible Learning” by Exhibit Concepts; “Supporting Diverse Learners from Cradle to Career” by Harriman-Hertz; and “Career Readiness and Beyond” by Schmidt Associates. Specialty Spaces on the show floor included “Learning Without Limits: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Early Education Classrooms” by AIA Committee on Architecture for Education; the “Ultimate Durability Zone” by MRL; “The Activity Center — Where Play, Tech and Wellness Collide” by Muzo; “The Exchange: Connect. Share. Transform.” 30-minute educational roundtables; “The Passport Park” where attendees could build their own LEGO-style mini-mes and get their caricature drawn; “The EDspaces Coffee House” by Smith System; and “The Architectural Portfolio and Educational Interiors Showcase” by American School & University.
Manufacturers provide the conduit between educational design and the classroom and they filled the Columbus Convention Center. Exhibitors ranged from the well-known brands in educational furniture like Smith System, MUZO, Virco, MiEN Environments, Artcobell, V/S and KI, which had one of the largest stands at the event, and those who are better known for their office furniture, but who also work in the educational furniture market such as HON, Arcadia, Kimball, Global and OFS. The expo also included brands that specialize in educational furniture like WB Manufacturing, Children’s Factory, Wood Designs and School Outfitters, to name a few.
Those manufacturers are also on the cutting edge of educational trends.
Matt Hinkle, vice president of sales and new business development for Jonti-Craft, said school designers are looking for products that provide flexibility in the classroom. “People don’t want a storage unit to be just a storage unit. They want it to function as other things,” he said. “So all of our storage units have now become mobile, so you can move those around the classroom. We also offer different options so you can get a dry erase back on our storage units. It’s not just a bookcase. You can flip it around and it becomes a teachable surface.”
Outdoor learning and play is also a trend in educational design.
Deron Thompson, senior director of commercial programs Forms+Surfaces, which makes a number of products, including outdoor site furniture, said since the pandemic, there has been a shift towards the use of outdoor space, especially in education.
“There are a lot of advantages to utilizing outdoor spaces that may have been a little underutilized or overlooked in the past. There are health and mental health benefits to outdoor environments. So especially in educational settings or high-stress work environments, having amenities in the outdoors that are durable, long lasting, comfortable and functional are important,” he said.
Products like demountable walls — popular in offices — are being used in higher education settings more and more, said Nathan Quintal, senior product marketing manager at KI Wall. He said the company is seeing several different applications for its wall products in colleges and universities.
“It makes it quick and easy for creating space within existing libraries, media centers, faculty areas, respite centers,” he said. “And the one we’re featuring here is actually around the idea of student and faculty wellbeing. It’s like a zen space. You can go in and it has all the acoustic features within it, and it blocks sound. It’s a very calming space. It’s so quick and easily defines space. Libraries and media centers need study areas and need more areas for students to be able to collaborate.”
Many schools are using demountable walls to create divisions of space with. “For example, there was a school that we were working with that had an old gymnasium. So just imagine, they didn’t have ceilings to connect to, but they wanted to create these divisions of space and this post and beam system with the superstructure allowed them to do that,” said Quintal.
Marco is an educational furniture company that started making aquarium stands. Chief Executive Officer Richard Davidson said he was asked by a high school band director if his company could make band lockers. He did and the company set a new course making classroom furniture, that now includes a full line of seating and lounge, desks and tables, storage and organization and library products.
The company is exploring how things like battery technology and portable power can be integrated into the classroom and how online education is changing learning.
“There’s also a trend where schools are putting students in a classroom community where three or four classes are located separately, but in the same space so they can socially interact more,” said Davidson.
The EDspaces community also celebrated the work of Jim McGarry, CEO of EDmarket, who is retiring after 14 years of leading the organization.
EDspaces 2026 will be held Oct. 28-30 in Kansas City.