GMB has been a prominent fixture in downtown Holland since 1968, when the firm was originally founded. GMB has occupied the space on 8^th street for more than 20 years and has undergone several renovations as the firm’s progressed and grown. GMB embraces a flexible workplace as part of this evolution, and this latest transformation offers a unique space for GMB’s employees to connect their work in education design and planning to the new ways of navigating work and learning.

“As GMB continues to expand our services and our team, it was essential that our spaces reflect the exciting changes happening within our organization,” said David Bolt, CEO and President of GMB. “Our newly renovated Learning Hub blends more than 50 years of history with a contemporary environment that embraces the future of work. We look forward to welcoming our teams and clients into a dynamic environment that fosters creativity, flexibility, and collaboration.”

The Learning Hub includes diverse workspaces ranging from a workshop supporting experimentation through making, group learning and meeting spaces, and focused work areas to support a broad set of needs. Robust technology throughout the hub blends in-person and virtual connections, extending team collaboration beyond geographic locations. Individuals can use an app to sign into the Learning Hub on days they will be physically present and can reserve a space for the kind of work best fits their day-to-day schedule, whether that’s a desk with monitors, a small meeting room, or a less structured workshop space. GMB’s Learning Hub spaces are also available to reserve for clients, students, and community education opportunities.

GMB has worked on many education projects in the Holland area with partners at Hope College, Holland Christian Schools, Grand Rapids Community College’s Lakeshore Campus, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland Public Schools and more. Other notable projects in Holland that GMB has designed include Lakeshore Advantage’s new Next Center, renovations to the Holland Civic Center, Window on the Waterfront Parks new skating rink, and the Sally Smoly Nature Playscape.

REGIONAL LEARNING HUBS
GMB’s regional Learning Hubs are designed for people within the educational ecosystem and to serve a variety of purposes for the ecosystem as a permanent installation. These physical locations, which also support virtual participation, provide a place to connect with a community and create learning experiences that support the needs of that community. The ways that people learn and collaborate today have changed and it’s the same in the workplace as it is in education. No longer are people learning in rows of desks facing one direction with one lecturer; we’re collaborating in teams and building a culture of feedback. Learning Hubs create an opportunity for us to connect our work in education design and planning to this new way of navigating work and learning. The first reimagined regional Learning Hub opened in Grand Rapids, Michigan in Fall 2022 and the second in Royal Oak, Michigan in Spring 2023. The third location, a redesign of GMB’s Holland, Michigan location, is slated to be completed by the end of 2023.

GMB believes that feedback is a crucial part of growth, so our Learning Hubs Team regularly solicits feedback from our clients and teammates on how our hubs are working for them. What we learn from this feedback will inform how we approach future changes in these spaces to keep them functioning as spaces that become a conduit for dialogue, exchanging ideas, and fostering the sharing of knowledge in an experiential way.

Where we are going

POP-UP LEARNING HUBS
Our goal is for Learning Hubs to connect to places where students and educators are already gathering. We are exploring how a Pop-Up Learning Hub could create a branded space that feels unique to GMB with dedicated space and resources for our clients. A Pop-Up Hub could be utilized at multi-day conferences, in professional development or training settings, on project sites, and beyond. Elements in a Pop-Up Hub may include a learning spine to anchor the space with technology and hospitality, a meeting and learning area, and an interactive digital display that highlights client projects and learning in action.

GMB has incorporated the Learning Hubs model into company-wide gatherings that provide a chance for us to fully co-locate, do team-building activities, have fun, and get aligned on company priorities for the year ahead. These quarterly opportunities give our teams the chance to align activities happening at our individual hubs and bring new ideas to the table. The Pop-Up Hub setting has allowed us to connect to our teammates and our work in a new way that promotes collaborating and doing project-based learning in small groups and teams.

INSTANT LEARNING HUBS
The smallest installation, an Instant Learning Hub, has the ability to move between locations quickly and easily and takes the least amount of time to effectively set up. One day tradeshows, project tours, career fairs, and other limited time events present the opportunity to bring the Learning Hub idea to life on a small scale. With student and client interaction in mind, an Instant Hub creates a flexible, intimate space to exchange knowledge, to learn together and from each other.

What could be next

MOBILE LEARNING HUBS
What if we could take the Learning Hubs model and apply that to any location and bring people together to have meaningful connections? A Mobile Learning Hub presents the chance to bring learning opportunities to underserved areas, to support special events, or create new experiential teaching and learning methods. Examples include the Mobile Makers program, whose trucks bring design and skill-building workshops to youths in Boston and Chicago communities with the goal of bringing more diversity and equity into the architecture and design field. Creating an accessible and collaborative mobile hub could be a pivotal piece in the learning ecosystem network, providing yet another connection point of the ecosystem we’re creating in our local communities.

CPTED training teaches participants that proper design and effective use of the built and social environment achieves a more productive use of space and a reduction of crime. The course covers topics that include site plan review, report writing, establishment and/or elimination of barriers, planning and zoning, and behavioral management.

“School security, and public safety in general, is a topic on the minds of every parent and community member. We were happy to host this timely training for our education clients and local law enforcement,” said Ron Boezwinkle, GMB Client Lead. Boezwinkle is also a member of an advisory board for Secure Education Consultants (SEC). “We learned valuable, real-world strategies that can be implemented in education environments and communities right away.”

This course also included a CPTED field assessment at local school districts to review existing site safety and security in the greater Grand Rapids community. CPTED training reinforces the importance placed on safety and security throughout local facilities and the community.

“As someone who regularly conducts security assessments, this training has helped provide a new way of observing and opened my eyes to other ways of addressing areas of concern,” said Shane Davis, Senior Lead Consultant at Secure Education Consultants. “CPTED training provided a number of new ideas to consider when making recommendations to our clients after conducting a security assessment as well as advising clients on new building or renovations projects.”

The in-person course was held at GMB’s Grand Rapids Learning Hub, which officially opened its doors in October 2022. GMB’s goal for Learning Hubs is to create an experiential and welcoming place for both clients and employees that encourages the exchange of knowledge and learning together. The Learning Hub, located at 555 4^th Street, is available to reserve for GMB clients, student groups, and other community education opportunities.

Additional information about CPTED can also be found at the following link: CPTED Professional Designation (CPD) Credential 

“The opening of our second Learning Hub in Royal Oak is an exciting next step for our organization and the education clients we work with in the community,” said Rob Den Besten, Chief Operations Officer at GMB. “We have the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from our team members, students and educators in this space, which is what we are really passionate about.”

A number of GMB’s clients are located within the greater Detroit area, including Ferndale Public Schools, Woodhaven-Brownstown School District, Clarkston Public Schools, and more, that can benefit from Learning Hub spaces, which are available to reserve for GMB clients, students, and community education opportunities.

GMB’s team gathered from across the nation in Detroit in January at a pop-up Learning Hub for the company’s annual GMB University, a two-day conference focused on team building and group learning. In line with the company’s focus for 2023 of “Great Teams Build,” GMB is looking to attract new ideal teammates to join GMB as the organization expands.

“GMB doesn’t operate within a hierarchical structure that is typical within our industry,” said Rose Wagner who works on GMB’s workforce growth team. “Instead, we operate like a network of teams that come together around specific goals. We are excited to welcome our team members into this redesigned, flexible workspace and for the opportunity to expand our team as we continue to grow in the region.”

GMB has worked in Southeast Michigan for more than 20 years and opened its first location in Royal Oak in 2018. GMB is 100% employee-owned by its trained educational planners, designers, and engineers.

GMB’s third physical Learning Hub, located in Holland, Michigan, is set to begin remodeling in the summer of 2023.

GMB embraces a flexible workplace as part of the firm’s evolution towards their just cause of creating learning ecosystems and opportunity for all. Whether virtual or physical, providing a space for collaborative learning experience with experiential gathering areas is the main focus.

“GMB is a learning organization, and we want these Learning Hubs to be an intentional, multipurpose space for group learning opportunities, community meetings, maker spaces, and more,” said David Bolt, GMB CEO. “Creating Learning Hubs felt like a natural next step for GMB to better align with our just cause and provide a real resource where we can work with our clients, our team, and our communities to provide solutions and connect.”

The plan for Learning Hubs began with identifying Guiding Principles focused on why people come together in these types of spaces. Fueled by a common purpose, to develop relationships and to learn by participation, observation and listening, GMB is ready to build on the momentum of opening the first Learning Hub.

“Our Learning Hubs provide a physical space to complement virtual options for learning and collaboration. They are places for coaching, asking questions, and experimenting with new ideas with our teammates, clients, educators, and students,” said Dan Tyrer, a design leader with GMB. “When designing the Grand Rapids hub, we sought to create a welcoming place where people come together to develop relationships. Diverse spaces ranging from a workshop supporting experimentation through making, group learning and meeting spaces, and focused work areas support a broad set of needs. In addition, robust technology throughout the hub blends in-person and virtual connections; extending collaboration beyond this specific geographic location.”

A number of GMB’s clients are located within the greater Grand Rapids region, including Forest Hills Public Schools, Kentwood Public Schools, Calvin University and more, that can benefit from Learning Hub spaces, which are available to reserve for GMB clients, students, and community education opportunities.

“We want our client experience to be reflective of our own employee experience, to be inclusive of the community and clients we partner with,” added Bolt.

GMB’s new Grand Rapids Learning Hub is located 555 E 4th Street NW. GMB has worked in the Grand Rapids area for 50 years and opened its first Grand Rapids office in 2012. GMB is 100% employee-owned by its trained educational planners, designers, and engineers.

GMB’s second physical Learning Hub is set to open in Royal Oak, Michigan in early 2023.

What exactly is a “Learning Hub?” When we looked at how our teams were collaborating both virtually and in person, we asked ourselves what brings us together now. We decided to throw away all the old connotations of an office, and instead create a place that connotes the learning experience we’re providing.

Though the last couple years disrupted and changed everything, GMB was already an organization focused on constant change and growth, and we easily transitioned to remote work and collaboration. The way we all work and collaborate changed dramatically, and we had to ask ourselves, what does that mean? What were we missing by being forced remote? Now that we are digital by design and intentionally flexible, we realized we want the places where we come together – whether virtual or physical – to be part of the collaborative learning experience. Because there’s a new reason for us to gather, and it’s all about experiential learning.

Our Learning Hubs provide a place for coaching, asking questions, experimenting with new ideas with our teammates and with our clients. By thinking beyond the surface-level changes many are talking about when it comes to office transformations, we’re doing so much more than just rearranging furniture or adding wi-fi. We’ve evolved from an organization that promotes chance mentoring into one that creates intentional opportunities for deeper connections and experiences, both internally and externally.

We want our client experience to be reflective of our own employee experience, to be inclusive of the community and clients we partner with. Which is why our Learning Hubs have both physical and digital opportunities for exchanging knowledge. The ways that people learn and collaborate today has changed and it’s the same in the workplace as it is in education. No longer are people learning by sitting in rows of desks facing one direction; we’re collaborating and doing project-based learning in groups and teams. There is a parallel to our own work. There is opportunity for us to connect our work in education design and planning to this new way of navigating work and learning.

The hub is a piece in the ecosystem network, providing a pivotal joint for connecting all the other components of the learning ecosystem we’re creating in our communities. Just like our Team of Teams structure, the hub is not THE thing, but an integral piece of the greater network.

…Which brings us back to making these places experiential.

Through empathy mapping as a team, we reimagined what our hubs could be and mapped out what elements already existed in our spaces, as well as what components were most important to our employees, our clients, and our communities.

Instead of the “put your head down” workstations taking precedence in our physical hubs, we’ve made the big experiential gathering areas the main focus. Those collaboration spaces can be multipurpose – group learning opportunities, community meetings, maker spaces, and more. There’s a real reason we get together to learn, because we’re a learning organization. And we want our clients and community coming into our spaces to feel that as well. Our Learning Hubs are becoming places where we can facilitate community interaction and connect to what students are already learning to be more intentional with how we’re also learning from them.

Our Learning Hubs can become community hubs with access to resources that become a conduit for dialogue, exchanging ideas, and fostering the sharing of knowledge in an experiential way that aligns with who we are as a learning organization. We were seeing this activity already happening in our spaces, so to align better with our just cause and what we’re trying to accomplish in the world, why not actually make our physical and digital spaces a real resource where we can work with our clients and communities to provide solutions and further our just cause?

The first of our newly imagined physical Learning Hubs will open this fall in Grand Rapids and Royal Oak, Michigan, and will feature multipurpose, experiential gathering areas where we can come together to learn. Our virtual client Learning Hub will also launch later this year. What we learn from these hub refreshes will inform how we approach future changes in our Holland, Michigan, and Indianapolis, Indiana, locations over the next two years.

Be sure to follow along on LinkedIn to see sneak peeks of our Learning Hubs transformation and get updates on upcoming events and learning opportunities.