Collaboration and design: Hands-on the future

Green Hope students, teachers and faculty collaborate together to renovate a storage room into a new recording studio.
Interior design students work together to repaint the walls of the old storage room.
Interior design students work together to repaint the walls of the old storage room.
Megan Khor
The idea

With the incorporation of digital resources into classrooms, the number of podcast-related projects has increased heavily. As students continue to be assigned projects related to podcast creation, the need for a quiet place away from the classroom to record has grown. Green Hope High School librarians Ms. Jenni Dry and Ms. Karyn Hladik-Brown collaborated with the interior design class to renovate an old library storage room into a collaborative recording studio.

Initially, the librarians used the old storage room behind the counter of the library primarily as a workspace until the two noticed the room could be repurposed into something else. “Earlier this year we were wanting to revamp our working space options and we noticed that a lot of classes do podcasts as projects … Students have been coming down here to record… We realized then we wanted to have a dedicated space for that,” Ms. Hladik-Brown stated in an interview with the GH Falcon.

The librarians decided to enlist the help of interior design teacher Mrs. Megan Morrow in order to bring their idea to fruition. Ms. Dry shared, “I happened to see Mrs. Morrow out in the hallway and told her about the idea we had. I told her that we would love it if she could just come and take a look at the space and give us some ideas.”

Mrs. Morrow proposed getting spring semester interior design students involved. “That got us really excited about it. It wasn’t just something we would work on, but something we could now collaborate with students on. We felt that it would really help get the word out about what was going to be available in the future,” Ms. Dry said.

Interior design students use a variety of brushes to paint the walls of the old storage room a new shade of blue. They work together to ensure no spot of green is left unchecked.
Interior design students use a variety of brushes to paint the walls of the old storage room a new shade of blue. They work together to ensure no spot of green is left unchecked. (Megan Khor)
About the students

Working on the renovation project has pushed students to feel a greater sense of unity with the Green Hope community.

Green Hope junior and interior design student Sophie Meekins (‘25) believed that the project was a valuable experience. “It is a great way to expand our skills by learning how to work with clients and seeing the amount of work and detail that goes into a room transformation,” she said.

The interior design students contributed to making the renovation project a reality since the beginning of the spring semester. The students provided multiple different mockup designs for the librarians to review before the renovation. “It was difficult to choose from so many different mockups which is why we ended up combining different elements we liked from each one instead of just choosing one favorite because when we were going through all of them we found that they were all great in different ways,” Ms. Hladik-Brown said.

Ms. Dry added, “A part of our decision was also because we were trying to stay within a budget that we had. There were a lot of cool features that we would love to do, maybe eventually we can, but we had to figure out what we could do that was really cool through using students’ ideas while sticking within the budget.”

By allowing them to contribute to the enhancement of a space that is used by the entire school community, students feel a deeper connection to their school environment and are more likely to take care of it.”

— Mrs. Megan Morrow

After the librarians decided on a combination of features, the students repainted the room in a week. Impressed by the students’ work, Ms. Hladik-Brown said, “It’s been really cool to just see the process, even when the painting alone was done I feel like the room has been transformed and we have gotten many compliments on the work the students have done.”

Ms. Hladik-Brown added that she learned a lot about the interior design process from watching the students work together to renovate the room. “The amount of work that goes into it is something that was cool to learn. Seeing the mockups that everybody made was really cool and just how different people could tackle the same assignment in really different ways. It was really cool to see.”

When asked about her favorite part of the process, Mrs. Morrow said, “It’s hard to choose just one aspect! However, if I had to pick, I’d say it’s the transformative nature of the project. Watching a dull or outdated space be revitalized with fresh paint, decor and creative design elements can be incredibly satisfying.”

The future

The librarians hope to have the room finished and ready for use by the start of the 2025-26 school year. Ms. Hladik-Brown said, “If our grant gets funded, we’re hoping to have some whiteboard walls for people to be able to collaborate there, LEGO boards, rugs to cover our current carpet to make it more beautiful and furniture that can be easily moved around to be in a group.”

Meekins hopes the project will pave the way for greater student involvement in the future. “Student participation is important in projects like this because it gives students new opportunities for teamwork, collaboration and work ethic. It helps students have a sense of pride in their school and see the type of work that goes into having nice public spaces for everyone to enjoy.”

For the interior design students, the project not only helps to enhance valuable learning opportunities by engaging students in meaningful work, but also provides the students with hands-on experience. The librarians and interior design class look forward to transforming the space into something beneficial for Green Hope students to use in the near future.

Student participation is important in projects like this because it gives students new opportunities for teamwork, collaboration and work ethic.”

— Sophia Meekins ('25)

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