JoAnn Hindmarsh Wilcox

JoAnn combines sensitive listening and agile problem-solving skills to craft innovative and rigorous architectural solutions that influence national K-12 and higher education design. For more than 20 years she has focused her practice on design for life-long learning, collaborating closely with students and educators to co-create spaces that amplify curriculum, maximize resources, foster community belonging, strengthen student agency, and uplift learning outcomes. Through robust community engagement, JoAnn’s design approach weaves empathy and advocacy and works to bring each voice to the table—creating equitable, high-performance environments rooted in social justice and sustainable well-being.

JoAnn’s built work highlights a balance between persistent curiosity and a quiet sensitivity to culture, place, and experience, and has been recognized with more than 60 awards for design excellence including a 2019 AIA Institute Award of Honor. For her design leadership and contributions to the profession, she was recognized with a national AIA Young Architect Award. She serves as Co-Chair of the AIA Committee on Architecture for Education K-12 Sub-Committee and recently contributed to the AIA pandemic-response guide, “Re-Opening America: Strategies for Safer Schools,” and the “National Summit on School Design Report: A Resource for Educators and Designers” by the American Architectural Foundation. JoAnn volunteers, juries, mentors, facilitates, publishes, and lectures on regional and national levels—engaging civic issues that speak to the transformational power of design.