DLR Group announced that the firm has added education design expertise to its New York City location. Jana Silsby, AIA, LEED AP, joins the firm as a principal and will serve as a K-12 education client leader, collaborating with design teams across the country to enhance the learning experience for students, staff, and communities. 

Silsby, who has decades of experience planning and designing learning environments, is immediately elevating design teams. She is an integral member of the team conducting an educational facilities master plan to set the new direction for planning and design in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The plan includes more than 2.7 million SF of educational space in 45 facilities across St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas. 

“Jana brings a new level of leadership to grow the firm’s portfolio of clients in New York and along the upper east coast. She is respected within the design industry and is well-known by school district clients for her ability to create innovative learning spaces,” said DLR Group Senior Principal Jim French, FAIA, who leads the firm’s K-12 Education Studio. 

“By creating educational environments that allow learners to explore, discover, fail, and recover, I am helping them to understand who they are and who they want to be. This experience unlocks the door to their potential,” said Silsby.

She is a champion of integrated design and an advocate for investing project dollars in sustainable strategies and systems that have the longest life and greatest impact on health, comfort, and wellbeing. Her teams effectively utilize performance analysis to inform early design decisions to ensure optimal environments, reduce energy usage, and minimize project costs.