When William Hall ’21 thinks about the veterans who will eventually walk through a new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Copperas Cove, Texas, he considers more than how the building will function.
As an assistant design lead on the project, Hall is working with LEO A DALY as part of a team that includes Cullinan, the project’s developer. He thinks about what it might feel like for a veteran entering the facility for the first time — particularly someone already facing a difficult moment. His own family includes veterans who have received care through VA hospitals, making questions of comfort, daylight and connections to the surrounding landscape especially meaningful in the design process.
The approach traces back to a lesson Hall remembers from his years at NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design: Architects design experience.
“One lesson from [Professor Emeritus] Tony Schuman that has stayed with me is the importance of thinking about architecture through the experience of the people who will actually inhabit the spaces we design,” Hall said.
Now an Architect II on LEO A DALY’s federal team in Washington, D.C., Hall has carried that philosophy from architecture studios in Newark into a career spanning health care, higher education and federal projects. The planned Copperas Cove clinic represents a $151 million investment intended to expand healthcare access for a large veteran population in Central Texas.
Learning through Newark
The New Jersey School of Architecture (NJSoA) at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design (HCAD) offered Hall a direct path into architecture. The accredited Bachelor of Architecture program and its reputation within the profession made HCAD a natural choice, and Hall has said the opportunity to study there gave him a chance to prove himself.
Some of his most influential experiences came in option studios taught by Schuman and Darius Sollohub. Rather than treating architecture as a design exercise, both courses placed students in real settings with communities and stakeholders who could be affected by their ideas.
In Schuman’s studio, Hall explored how an arts district around Lincoln Park in Newark could be strengthened. Students met with a developer who owned nearby properties, visited project sites and toured Newark Symphony Hall. Sollohub’s studio shifted the focus to NJIT, where Hall and his classmates proposed a mixed-use gateway at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Central Avenue and presented their work to university stakeholders.
“Through both of these studios, we were challenged to work through real-world scenarios with active stakeholders who could actually benefit from our ideas,” Hall said. “I think these studios captured the essence of the practical, community-focused education that defines NJIT’s architecture program.”
That thinking is visible today in his work on the VA clinic. Instead of looking only at program requirements, Hall said the design team has sought ways to make the facility welcoming and supportive of healing, including maximizing daylight and creating views toward the natural environment.
“Those decisions may seem simple individually, but together they can have a real impact on someone’s experience of a place,” Hall said.
From New Jersey to Washington
Hall graduated in 2021, when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic made the transition into architecture particularly difficult. After submitting nearly 100 applications, he joined NK Architects in Morristown and spent almost four years working primarily on health care and higher education projects, including an open-heart surgery unit renovation for a South Jersey hospital system.
During that period, Hall also pursued professional licensure, studying for more than a year while working full time. He became a licensed architect in 2023 and was subsequently promoted, taking on greater responsibilities in project coordination and construction administration.
“Becoming a licensed architect has been my biggest professional accomplishment so far,” Hall said. “I had heard too many stories of people putting [the exams] off for years, so while I was still in the mindset of studying from NJIT, I wanted to push through and get them done.”
Washington had already been on his mind for another reason. Hall had been in a long-distance relationship with his now-wife for several years, and relocating to D.C. allowed them to be together while presenting him with an opportunity to join LEO A DALY and transition from health care into federal architecture.
That move has also changed the direction of his professional interests.
Finding a future in preservation
Living and working in Washington has made Hall increasingly interested in historic preservation and adaptive reuse.
He grew up in a historic house and town, but said being surrounded by buildings in Washington that have endured generations of change made him consider preservation differently. Architecture, he realized, does not always require beginning with something new.
“We aren’t always designing something new; sometimes our responsibility is figuring out how an existing building can continue to serve people while respecting the history and character that make it significant,” Hall said.
For Hall, that responsibility carries an emotional dimension as well.
“There is something special about getting to play a small part in the long history of a building,” he said. “Buildings hold the memories and stories of the people who have interacted with them over generations.”
His growing commitment to the field recently earned external recognition. The Washington chapter of the Association for Preservation Technology named Hall one of its 2026 Emerging Professionals Sponsorship Program awardees.
Hall will use the sponsorship to attend the Preservation Trades Network’s International Preservation Trades Workshop as he continues developing the technical knowledge behind preservation and adaptive reuse.
Service beyond architecture
Community has also shaped Hall outside the studio.
He joined Pi Kappa Phi in 2017, where leadership roles and national educational conferences helped prepare him for professional life. At HCAD, he also served as a peer mentor, helping first-year architecture students adjust to studio culture.
That fraternity connection eventually led to one of his most demanding experiences. In 2023, Hall participated in Gear Up Florida, cycling 1,000 miles as part of a team that raised more than $225,000 for The Ability Experience, Pi Kappa Phi’s philanthropy supporting people with disabilities. The riders visited community organizations throughout the journey and saw firsthand the impact of their fundraising.
“It remains one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life,” Hall said.
His connection to NJIT continues today as a chapter advisor for Pi Kappa Phi, bringing him back to Newark to mentor students much as he once did as an architecture peer mentor. He has also begun attending alumni events and hopes to deepen his involvement with the university.
From those early Newark studios to federal projects in Washington, the common thread in Hall’s path has become clearer: architecture, leadership and service all require thinking about the people on the other side of the work.
“That way of thinking has stayed in the back of my mind throughout my career,” Hall said. “How will someone experience and interact with the built environment, and what can we do as architects to make that experience better?”
