Dawn R. Schuette, AIA - principal

(Full resume available for download here. CV available here.)

For Dawn, an unattended piano has always been an open invitation, and the grooves of the family-favorite LPs were worn smooth from heavy use. She sang in middle school and church choirs, but latent, and very subtle, leadership abilities led her to the pipe organ, which she played for church services and choral performances until leaving Lincoln, Nebraska for Chicago to study architecture. Somewhere in the interim, on a school tour, conversation audibly creeping along the vaulted stone ceiling of the Nebraska State Capitol left its mark. At Illinois Institute of Technology, her interests turned toward City and Regional Planning for its comprehensive view of the built environment and the place of people within it, but the lifelong interest in music reasserted itself shortly after college when she joined Kirkegaard Associates to focus on acoustics. Fifteen years and many profoundly successful projects later, she joined Threshold as a principal.

Dawn has recently been engaged by the Illinois Institute of Technology as an Adjunct Professor in the College of Architecture and has authored an invited chapter for the new Wiley & Sons publication, Building Type Basics for Performing Arts Facilities. She is a Director of the Chicago AIA Chapter and holds a position on the National AIA advisory group for the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture (IFRAA). Dawn has contributed articles to Faith and Form, Architecture, Fabric Architecture, and Auditoria magazines and has presented her work at national conventions for the American Institute of Organbuilders, the AIA, and the Acoustical Society of America, including the ASA's 1999 international meeting in Berlin and the upcoming 2008 meeting in Paris.

Her work at Threshold includes:

  • Ford Calumet Environmental Center
  • Media Production Center for Columbia College Chicago
  • The Inspiring Body of Christ Church in Dallas, Texas
  • Lied Center for the Performing Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska
  • Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, Texas
  • University of South Dakota, Slagle Auditorium, Vermillion, South Dakota
  • Harpo Studios, Chicago, Illinois

 

Prior to joining Threshold Acoustics, Dawn led the design and management of the following Kirkegaard projects: