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This study investigated how high school architecture can better support the wellbeing of high school communities that have experienced a school shooting, and it questioned whether current trauma-informed design frameworks adequately address the collective needs of school shooting survivors. School shootings have become a persistent condition within the United States, with 330 school shooting incidents occurring in K–12 schools in 2024 and 229 in 2025 (K-12 School Shooting Database). While trauma-informed care and design have recently been introduced into educational environments to support safety and healing, existing frameworks largely focus on individual wellbeing rather than the shared trauma experienced by entire school communities after a mass shooting.  

This investigation is focused around four main questions. The first being what design principles guide trauma-informed design, and what are the limitations of such approach regarding trauma-informed design for high school users that have experienced a school shooting? The second question is how can designers retrofit or rebuild high schools to promote wellbeing for high school students and staff that have experienced a school shooting. The next question is what are the preventative design measures that designers can use to limit the number of mass shootings that happen in high schools in the United States. The final question that this investigation will answer is how can designers appropriately work with a trauma impacted community to retrofit or redesign their high school.  A timeline of high school impacts in the United States since 1950 was created, coded analysis of previously conducted interviews with school shooting survivors; interviews with educational design experts; comparative case studies of three high schools evaluated using the Trauma-Informed Design Society’s TiDEvalK12 toolkit; a new version of the TiDEvalK12 toolkit was created for designers and educators to use after a mass shooting; and more methods were conducted to understand school shooting survivors' needs to design high schools that promote collective healing and wellbeing.  

Findings uncovered that current trauma-informed design frameworks prioritize individual recovery while overlooking survivors’ shared need for collective healing, connection, and advocacy within their school environments. The investigation proposes that high school design following a school shooting must integrate opportunities for collective healing, flexible learning environments, and surveilled flow safety strategies, contributing to a more comprehensive design framework that supports both individual wellbeing and collective healing. 

Works Cited

Database, K-12 School Shooting. “12 School Shooting Database.” K, k12ssdb.org/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.