We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Margot Kleinman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Margot below.

Alright, Margot thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Is there a lesson you learned in school that’s stuck with you and has meaningfully impacted your journey?

I learned a couple of important lessons while I was in school. While these lessons were learned at the time they were happening, they have continued to impact me in my professional life, especially as a business owner and educator.

When I was pursuing my undergraduate architecture degree at the University of Maryland, I helped bring a chapter of Alpha Rho Chi Professional Fraternity for Architecture and the Allied Arts to the University. At the end of my junior year, I was elected president of the chapter. Before that, I had never seen myself as a leader, but my classmates and membership supported me through it and I have been leading with Alpha Rho Chi ever since. I learned that there are different kinds of leaders and that I could be a strong one even if I was not always the loudest, most commanding presence in the room. I learned that, instead, it’s about people wanting to listen and work with you, and about empowering people to have agency in their roles to work together and see potential in one another.

Two impactful lessons I learned from a graduate school professor of mine was when he asked me “why are your walls vertical” and the potential of public restrooms as a critical human resource. While not related, both lessons challenged my traditional thinking and I carry both these lessons with me in my design approach, teaching, and practice today. “Why are your walls vertical” felt like a ridiculous comment at the time, of course my walls were vertical! I later understood he was testing my ability to challenge what I perhaps accepted as a construction norm or given solution, and think about my design concept on a deeper level.

Given I was studying architecture in Los Angeles, the topic of public restrooms came up in a design studio course when my professor explained to me that access to a public restroom could be a resource for someone experiencing homelessness to have somewhere to wash before going to work. Just because they lack somewhere to sleep does not mean they are not working. It was an eye opening conversation for me that really pushed the impact I felt I could have as a future architect. I was motivated to use my training to improve the lives of the public in the built environment. Since that conversation, I started designing for public restrooms in my school projects, volunteering as an advocate and graphic designer with PHLUSH during COVID, and now teach a course at Pratt Institute called “Public Toilets” focusing on research, access, and design.

Margot , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an architect, educator, and researcher. I am the founder of Vagus Workshop and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute. I believe in using my training to improve the built environment by engaging with and listening to the people who use and are impacted by the spaces I design. I also prioritize mentoring and teaching the next generation of designers. The education space has always been special to me and as of the last few years, each piece of the puzzle has come together.

In 2024, I founded Vagus Workshop, an architecture and design practice focusing on student, community, and civic spaces through experience informed co-design. My research focuses on the student experience and sense of belonging in school spaces, as well as public toilet access and design. Focusing in New York City, my research informs my teaching and practice.
It is quite special to me to be a part of young designers’ educational experience, and watch as their design lens is developed.

Likewise, to learn first hand from them about how a physical environment can affect the student experience, and first hand from a teaching perspective influences the way I approach professional projects. Yet, a student’s relationship to academia starts much before the college level I teach at, when a student is a child. It is also quite special to get to work with young students and learn what it is like to be and design with young people today.

My architecture path began when I was accidentally placed in an architecture class during my freshman year of high school. After four years, I decided to pursue architecture for college and earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Maryland, and Master of Architecture from the University of Southern California.

I started my career at Gensler, and worked on a range of projects and scales. I began working on master planning projects before moving onto airports and transportation projects. I worked on a few consulting and mixed use projects where I helped organize and lead visioning sessions and user interviews to establish project requirements. In 2020 I began researching the underrepresented student experience in regards to their feelings of safety and belonging in New York City schools with a small team through the Gensler Research Institute. That experience ignited my passion for research and education as it connected to design, and provided opportunities to create and organize a variety of student engagement activities for research. I truly enjoyed learning from them about how they experience school and the built environment, and the dialogue about how design could improve those everyday experiences in their schools. At that point, I started focusing my project work on education projects, too.

In 2022 I began teaching at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn while I was working full time. I continued to teach one course a semester for the following semesters. The moment came when I had an opportunity to teach more classes, get more involved in academics, and start working independently for a charter school. With these opportunities, I decided to take the jump and launch my own business that I would balance with my developing academic career.

The mission of Vagus Workshop is to improve the human experience in the built environment through research and design by working together, designing with rather than designing for my clients. I believe that in order to live and engage comfortably and fully, people must feel safe in their built environment. That’s where “Vagus” comes in: The Vagus Nerve is the longest in the body that transmits feelings of emotional well-being. For example, when our breathing and heart rate are regular and calm and our stomach is relaxed, the vagus nerve conveys feelings of safety to our brains. When we are overwhelmed or stressed, our heart rate goes up, our breathing quickens, and our stomach feels tight. And in reverse, when our stomach aches or our heart rate goes up, we don’t feel safe. How can we design spaces that make people feel safe? This comes through user engagement for each project to understand the project and people’s specific needs. This also is supported by ongoing research in related project types.
I’ve taught drawing and representation courses at Pratt Institute, as well as the Public Toilets elective I created, and starting in Fall 2025 will be teaching the Co-Design Studio for the School of Design where we design and fabricate with local community partners. I’ve also taught architecture and interior design studios at City College of New York, Parsons School of Design, and New York City College of Technology. Through my teaching, I constantly learn through the work and dialogue with my students, and often write projects that ask students to go engage with their project users, too.

Over the last year I’ve been involved in an independent project with my research and design partner, Danielle Begnaud, called “Co-Designing the Classroom”. In light of post-pandemic, high levels of absenteeism in U.S. schools, we worked with a group of middle schoolers to study students’ feelings of connection and belonging to their physical school space in hopes of increasing engagement and attendance in New York City public schools. We’ve been researching and designing with a group of students to understand how design can improve their sense of engagement and belonging in their school spaces. Together, over the course of five co-design sessions, we created three design solutions that could be used in school spaces.

At this point, my research, teaching, and professional work work hand in hand to support one another. I believe this makes my practice unique in the way that I am constantly learning, engaging, and testing methods of engagement and design both in the classroom and in ways to support clients. While these methods of co-design have been focused on working with children and school spaces, they are applicable to any project. The acts of listening, asking questions, and working as a facilitator to come to a solution together can be translated to community, civic, institutional spaces, and more. I have always considered myself a natural collaborator, which is why the method of co-design feels so natural to me. I enjoy working with others and learning about people’s individual experiences, and find it fascinating that these experiences continue to evolve. As designers, specifically working on public spaces, the challenge is to keep listening, engaging, and designing with all perspectives at the forefront.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was about what professional life would look like and the plan to get there. As I was coming to the end of my education, I was about to start my professional career and the conversations began circling around the “plan”. Up to when I was graduating with a Master of Architecture, the plan had been set: college, travel and work while I deferred graduate school for a year, start graduate school, and then likely become a licensed architect. I would get a corporate job in architecture – I had no interest in starting my own firm. Once I graduated with a Master of Architecture, though, the “five year plan” question became very real as I was mourning what I thought was the end of my education.
I decided to continue in study mode and dove into the Architectural Registration Exams head first while returning to practice architecture at Gensler where I worked between my degrees. I planned to finish the exams in about a year and move to London. COVID then hit, ruined that plan, and eventually I moved to New York City – where I thought I never wanted to live. Fast forward, I left my corporate job, I love New York City, and I’m back focusing on academics, research, and designing for the built environment with my own architectural practice. Any sense of what I thought had been the plan has changed, except continuing in the field of architecture.
While this was never the plan I saw for myself, the unfolding of several years to get to where I am today has made sense to me. I am working and doing everyday what is most important to me. A lesson in this was also encouraging “you don’t know what you don’t know” as well as my determination to work hard for what I want and what I really care about. I learned that instead of creating a plan and following what felt like a prescribed path, what matters more is understanding what is most important to me and moving forward with that direction in everything that I do.
Alpha Rho Chi has been an opportunity for me to lead, mentor, and give back, which gave me a strong foundation for teaching. Teaching continues to teach me, and working with students motivates me to work at my best, try new ideas, and push my students to their potential; I am constantly inspired. Focusing my practice on school spaces, public spaces and infrastructure, and community spaces fuels me to use my training to impact the public and improve their lives in the built environment.
While the plan changed and I wouldn’t have been able to guess at where I’ve landed, I am now confident in the structure of my professional career and excited about the next steps – both how they relate and operate independently.

Any advice for managing a team?

When it comes to managing a team and keeping high morale, I start leading with listening. I believe it is important to be open to what others have to say and make peoples opinions feel heard. In order to have a successful team, there must be trust. Trust often relates to clear and open communication. I often think to myself to learn from my own experiences: what would motivate me if we were to switch roles? How would I want to be treated?
There is a balance between managing roles according to people’s strengths, while leaving space and room for individuals to grow. Understanding my team allows me to encourage and support each member how they need to be supportive. Likewise, I am a strong believer that people are motivated to do work hard towards what they care about. When managing a team, the effort to get to know the teammates allows me to approach delegation and coordination in ways that hopefully excite the individuals. There’s been times that others have seen potential in me and pushed me, and I try to pass that onto others I manage as well. Through a positive attitude, organized approach, clear communication and transparency, a healthy team is built.
Last, a major element that contributes to a strong team is celebrating wins together. We often are working hard day to day, sometimes obstacles arise, but regardless, the wins are important. Taking the time to celebrate them, whether it’s an excited group text, a get together to announce, or hopefully a meal, the wins celebrated together are important.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vagusworkshop.com/
• Instagram: @vagusworkshop @24.7toilets
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margotkleinman

Image Credits

The two renderings that have Gensler in the title should be credited from Gensler. All others are my own images, created under Vagus Workshop or 24.7 Toilets