Shannon Schmehl

Curious by nature and explorative by habit, I have an innate desire to learn and improve. Within the architectural industry, this is applied by building each project on the previous project, putting learning and adapting as an embodied approach rather than a formal process. This prioritizes the process - valuing the "how" over the "what." By leveraging my experience as an architectural project leader and BIM manager, I am able to teach and empower others on how to work more effectively, gain efficiency and leverage technology in an effort to further the reach and impact of the profession.

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Upon entering into the architecture field, I saw architecture as a technical art with the ability to better people's lives. My approach to design and construction was viewed through the lens of meeting needs and having impact. At the beginning of my graduate education, impactful architecture was viewed as design that addressed extreme needs: public housing, disaster recovery, disaster resilience, refugee housing, sanitary provisions and the list continues. Projects were viewed through the lens of having an impact, yet every project was unique. Each project maintains its identity based on client vision, physical context, and the current social climate of the time. Years later, the desire to meet improve and impact led to teaching architectural graduate coursework surrounding ecological issues and environmental impacts.

While I started my career viewing the "what" as having the potential to improve circumstances, what I found along the way is the "how" multiplies this ability tenfold. If we can work more efficiently, reduce design issues and increase collaboration, firms will maximize their ability to impact and have farther reaching results. Professionally, I have paired technology with my desire for improvement by meeting the needs of the profession and colleagues. In my roles as an architectural project leader and BIM manager, I have sought to improve the way we work by to establishing company workflows, BIM standards, and running software training in Revit. I have also established processes to connect various software such as Revit, Rhino, 3DS Max and collaborated with design technologists to understand how computation can optimize both working processes as well as results. Now, as a Technical Specialist in the AEC industry for Autodesk, I am able to take these skills beyond a single firm or two and help multiple firms reach their goals so they too can further their impact.