Do buildings have a soul? I teach in a school with almost a thousand students. We recently moved into a new building. I spoke with an architecture professor who served as an advisor for the planning of our new campus. He introduced me to the idea that buildings have a soul. According to our consultant, an architectural concept for any building, be it a school, an office or a house, should really be a metaphor or image of the dreams and values ​​of the people who will use that building. Articulating and defining the soul of a building is a process that should include as many people as possible who will inhabit the finished structure.

At our school, we define your soul in a unique way. We first ran a contest in which anyone associated with our school could submit a drawing, a story, a sculpture, or a movie about what they thought was the “soul” of our school. A student made a 3D model of children playing soccer. A parent presented a series of pillars, each with a “hero” from one of the eight knowledge areas. Galileo, for example, represented science. A teacher wrote a story about how a young woman with autism had been accepted and loved at our school. A graduating senior wrote an article about why the name of our sports team “The Warriors” represented the “can do” and “never say die” spirit of our students. All submissions became part of a brochure to announce a design image competition for architects. They were invited to create a concept design for the “look” of our school based on the visions of the “soul” provided by our school community.

The entries in this contest were diverse and exciting. An architect had designed what looked like a multi-level tree house. Another had created a kind of butterfly design to show how our school wanted to transform children’s lives. Another came up with a plan that resembled an eagle’s nest, as our school was to be a place where children could safely learn until they were ready to fly on their own. One design was in the shape of a Noah’s ark. The winning work resembled the outstretched open hands of God. Since our school is a religious institution, the architect had made the elementary and middle school wings of our school represent each of God’s hands with a huge courtyard in their open palms where community members could gather. If you walk into our school today, that is exactly the design you will see.

I asked our consulting architect how we could know for sure that a building accurately reflected the “soul” of the community it housed. He told me that the “soul” of the building cannot be measured in any way. It was something that could only be discerned with the heart.