Photo courtesy of SMMA
Lorraine Finnegan
CEO, SMMA
Age: 52
Industry experience: 30 years
The new CEO of SMMA architects has a history of adapting to changing economic conditions. Lorraine Finnegan emigrated from her native Ireland to the U.S. for better job opportunities during a mid-1990s recession, finding employment at Boston-area architects before landing at Cambridge-based SMMA in 1998 in a temporary role. Named the new CEO of SMMA in June to succeed the retiring Ara Krafian, Finnegan is helping the firm maintain its presence in a steady sector: major school construction projects in Greater Boston including high schools in Winchester, Somerville and Waltham.
Headquartered in a 42-year-old building at 1000 Massachusetts Ave. that it designed, the 225-employee firm opened a new office in early summer in Manchester, New Hampshire as it expands its presence north of Boston and gives employees more flexible commuting options.
Q: Which sectors are driving SMMA’s growth in the current real estate environment?
A: Historically, our firm has been split 50-50 on institutional and corporate life science, and in the last three or four years obviously with the changes in the market, people are waiting a lot. Projects are on hold. We’ve overbuilt in the life sciences market. Our share of the institutional work has increased.
Right now, a lot of our school projects are in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is unique in the way that it is funding schools with $0.01 of the sales tax [dedicated to the Massachusetts School Building Authority]. As long as that is maintained, people will be able to manage their portfolios of buildings, keep them up to date and be able to turn them over.
We designed the new [Ellen Garrison Building at the] Concord Middle School, and they chose not to wait for the state funding and took it on themselves. There’s three tracks for high schools: the traditional academic, a comprehensive high school and a traditional vocational tech. A comprehensive is where we’ve taken some of the vocational programs and integrated them into academics – cosmetology and carpentry shops are located next to the auditorium, for example. They are getting their academics and feel like they are part of the high school culture, not those kids over in the voke shops.
High schools of the past used to segregate the vocational programs. How students learn today, there’s an understanding of the inclusive aspects and making sure all are welcome. There’s a lot of focus on student agency and project-based learning: allowing the students to drive their learning at their pace.
Q: What’s changing in approach to elementary school design?
A: We do a fair number of elementary schools. We opened the new West Elementary School in Andover last September. These are becoming bigger schools, and we’re trying to make sure students feel comfortable in the larger schools. There’s economics when you’re looking at school buildings, and some are becoming larger.
Andover’s is over 1,000 students, so what we look to do is create schools within schools, and individual neighborhoods per grade, so students don’t feel lost in a large building. Driving the details and design down to the scale of the student and making sure they don’t feel they’re in a cavernous area. The old West Elementary was open classrooms, and we’re moving away from that. Thermal comfort, acoustics and lighting are critical to how people learn.
Q: What is SMMA’s largest current project?
A: From the education side, we are doing Lexington High School. We’ve submitted schematic designs to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. During feasibility, we were looking at about $662 million, and we’re in pricing mode and we’ll soon have the current estimates on the schematics.
Q: In your workplace practice, how are designs reflecting the rising awareness of neurodiversity?
A: The spaces you learn or work or live in really impact yourself, your well-being and your learning ability. We do a lot of crossover in the office between our markets to understand the different aspects of that. People are trying to get employees back in the office. What do we have to create? Even in schools, you’re fighting absenteeism. It goes back to inclusion. You talk about the impact that color can have on working or learning. Acoustics are so big. For kids with autism, the shape of the space can influence how they feel in the room. We spend a lot of time talking about how you can think about all of these things, and not have one of everything. You’re not going to design 50 different classrooms.
Q: What does the research say about color?
A: Reds are not so great, to be honest. Reds tend to instigate anger. Muted color is also not the way to go. For a band class or a drama room, you want something that’s more exciting. You want a calming color in a conference room or a classroom. It’s really trying to tune it to the activity that’s occurring in that area.
The battle with acoustics is going to come down to maintenance of areas. You’re not going to have a lot of draperies in a school. You’re looking at the floors. We did terrazzo all through the first floor in Waltham [High School]. We work with Acentech and say, “How do we manage this space for the amount of people going through it?” Our auditoriums get acoustically balanced. We look at the absorption, the reflections and the deflection. It is a science even the splay of the walls impacts how people in the back hear versus people in the front.
Finnegan’s Five Favorite Leisure Activities
- Family time
- Her annual Christmas trips to Ireland back home to visit family
- Unwinding at Newfound Lake in New Hampshire
- Eating chocolate while drinking a Guinness
- Celebrating life’s milestones
