AIA DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD

Last week, KCDC received the AIA Kansas City Design Excellence Concept Merit Award! The project is a vision study for the redevelopment of Kessler Park and the conceptual design proposal for the repurposing of the abandoned water reservoir. A very special thank you to the 2014-15 studio that worked on this great project: Aaron Bisch, Derek Hueffmeier, Noah Volz, Owen Cobb, Dominique Roberson, Lindsey Brockhouse, Megan Hoehensinner, Rachel Kelsey, Robyn Tank, and Yihong Yan.

The purpose of the vision study was to reintegrate the Kessler Park into its larger urban context; and enhance its internal ordering, experiential cohesion and programming capitalizing on original Kessler’s ideas, inherent natural amenities and the strategic adaptation of the transformative change that time has imposed on the park and its context. 

The conceptual design proposal examines the possibility of integrating the reservoir into inhabitable public space of the park by proposing an incisive interpolation of a bridge structure – ‘ a living link.’ It serves as a critical activating element which operates as a series of programmatic pods that interact with the reservoir space allowing for different functions to take place while preserving its existing ‘found’ condition.

Congratulations are also in order to our collaborators at KU Architecture who won the Honor Award in the Concept Category for MoCOLAB!