Making Sense of Space – NACUBO Business Officer Magazine – Sandra R. Sabo – Pub. 2019

Making Sense of Space – NACUBO Business Officer Magazine – Sandra R. Sabo – Pub. 2019

Sandra R. Sabo interviewed Sorensen Partners Principal-in-Charge Marie S.A. Sorensen, RA in 2019 for ‘Making Sense of Space,’ published in the November 2019 issue of the Natoinal Association of College and University Business Officers’ (NACUBO) Business Officer Magazine. Making Sense of Space can be read online at businessofficermagazine.org.

Sabo’s article highlights a topic of concern to administrators and space planners throughout higher education: how to change space usage using inputs from staff that are transparent and actionable. Sabo states: “Rightsizing your built infrastructure requires translating data about space needs and usage into a fair and enforceable policy.”

For the article, Sabo interviewed Sorensen in addition to two of the firm’s clients, Peggy Seiden, Swarthmore College’s academic library director, and Mary Somerville, university librarian at University of the Pacific.

Sorensen Partners was featured in this article because projects for both Swarthmore and University of the Pacific were a success, in Sabo’s terms.

Sorensen Partners designed and conducted anthropological interviews with space occupants and studied and analyzed their space, presenting this information back to occupants in a series of workshops and one-on-one exercises that led to discoveries about needs for the new planned space. Sorensen Partners’ schematic and conceptual design drawings resulting from these planning exercises could move past the planning stage because of occupant buy-in.