Welcome KCDC's new Director!

We are delighted to announce that Lauren Harness has been selected as the new Director of the Kansas City Design Center.

"Kansas City and the KCDC are essential to APDesign at K-State.” said Michael McClure, Dean of The College of Architecture, Planning & Design at Kansas State University, “We are thrilled to have Lauren Harness as our new director, we welcome her back to K-State, and look forward to the energy and leadership she will bring in improving Kansas City through applied planning and design research."

Lauren brings a wealth of experience and a diverse portfolio of work to her new role at KCDC. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Kansas State University (2015) with a minor in Regional and Community Planning and is a Registered Architect and LEED Green Associate.

Lauren's impressive career includes roles at prominent firms such as William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.; MASS Design Group; Ennead Architects; and El Dorado Inc. Her notable projects range from educational facilities and cultural centers to affordable housing and public parks, showcasing her commitment to socially impactful and environmentally sustainable design.

Lauren is actively engaged in the professional community through various roles, including the Dean's Advisory Council at K-State APDesign, and continued mentoring and volunteer work through her local AIA chapters in both Boston and New York City.

Stay tuned for exciting programming events this fall, including “Coffee with the Kansas City Design Center.” This event will offer a unique opportunity to meet our new Director, Lauren Harness, and engage in discussions about the KCDC mission and our future endeavors.

Event Recap: Third Friday Art Walk in KCK

The Third Friday Art Walk in KCK on June 21st was an exciting event! It provided a wonderful opportunity to engage with community members and showcase the designs that students created during the past semester. The Kansas City Design Center students exhibited their revitalization concepts for Bethany Park, which featured a master plan as well as several individual housing typologies.

The pop-up exhibit also included a panelized structure that students designed and built earlier in the semester. This structure was assembled on-site at the Art Walk to demonstrate innovative prefab construction techniques aimed at creating better-performing and more affordable homes.

Open House Recap and Transition to KCDC Summer Publication

The academic year concluded with our Open House event on May 9th. We were thrilled to welcome the community to see the progress made on our KCK Housing Revitalization Vision Study and individual housing typologies projects, incorporating feedback from our final design review. For the first time, we displayed the prefabrication panels we worked on during the semester. These panels connect to the master plan and housing typologies by demonstrating building techniques that could be part of a larger, year-long project focused on revitalizing the neighborhoods around Bethany Park on Central Avenue with affordable, multigenerational, and mixed-use housing. The Open House brought closure to the semester, providing an opportunity for students, faculty, and community members to celebrate our accomplishments, share insights, and discuss future plans for the Bethany Park project, including the master plan, housing typologies projects, and prefabrication panels.

As summer approaches, we will be developing the publication for the KCK Housing Revitalization 2023 and Spring 2024 design project and prefabrication exhibit.

Final Review

As the academic year comes to a close, so too does our current design project. This past Monday, we welcomed a panel of critics to partake in our final design review. Among the critics were Gunner Hand and Alyssa Marcy from the UGWC Planning Department; Greg Sheldon, Sarah Murphy, and Michael Luczak from BNIM; and our former Director, Vladimir Krstic. Our review took a deep dive into the different pieces of our Bethany Park Masterplan, which includes a range of housing typologies from detached, single-family houses to a mid-rise, mixed-use building, as well as programmatic Nodes between the residential pieces. As a studio, we are using the feedback we received in our review to prepare our Bethany Park Masterplan for presentation in the Heintzelman Design Competition in Manhattan, Kansas, which celebrates the design work produced by 5th-Year Architecture students at Kansas State University.

On Thursday, May 9, we will be welcoming the community to come and see our work at our Open House event. We will have our masterplan and each of our housing typologies on display as a prototype for further housing developments throughout Kansas City, Kansas.

Design Update

We have been continuing our work on designing the final master plan for the Bethany Park site. Our focus has been on incorporating individual housing units and typologies into the site, with the aim of creating an affordable community that embraces the culture within our master plan - this includes integrating walkable features and enhancing amenities within the park space.

On Monday, we had the opportunity to present our master plan to Jeremy Knoll from BNIM and Maria Isabela Pineda, an architect at Cota Arquitectura in Maracaibo, Venezuela, who is currently a fellow in the YLAI program through Global Ties KC. During the presentation, we discussed steps to further develop our master plan and create spaces within the housing units and typologies to foster a walkable community. As a team, we explored various design and organizational strategies for placing our housing units and typologies within nodes to provide the community with convenient access to shared amenity spaces. Their input was greatly appreciated and has been instrumental in guiding our team towards valuable advancements in our updated master plan.

We are excited about the significant benefits this master plan can bring to KCK. Please stay tuned for future updates on its progress!