Another year complete!

Prospect Avenue Nodal Study is wrapping up this week! Monday was the final studio review for the project and Thursday is our Open House for the final project. Click here for more information on the Open House, we’d love to see you there!

In reflecting on the project, as a class we have learned new skills and a new perspective that will help guide us in the future.

We learned to push one another towards stronger designs.
We understand that research is never finished
We refined our ability to express our ideas both verbally and graphically
We know to always edit, and then re-edit, and then edit one more time
We recognize how to communicate with our peers as teammates
We have the ability to take charge and lead when necessary
We realize the importance of understanding the views of people who live in the places our project touch
We made progress in connecting with community members and people shaping the future of Kansas City
Lastly, we learned how to listen

This project was most importantly an academic study of the Prospect Avenue Corridor, but it was also much larger than that. Throughout the process it became an invitation to be excited about the future of the corridor and an opportunity to look at Prospect Avenue as a place with boundless potential.

And with that, congratulations to all of the students on finishing the third phase of the project and congratulations to all of our seniors who will be graduating on Saturday! We wish you all the best.

The final leg of the studio project comes this summer— two KCDC students will compile the comprehensive project publication about the Prospect Ave research, process, and outcomes from the 2018-2019 year. Look out for the hard copies and digital copies in the Fall!

Keep Pushing the Design

From the Dream The Combine artist lecture to our second community engagement meeting, KCDC students have had a busy start to spring.

We welcomed Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of Dream The Combine to the KCDC on April 2nd for a guest lecture. They termed themselves ‘makers’ that are ‘partners in work and life, [they] create site specific installations exploring metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our own understanding of the world’. Jennifer and Tom presented a number of projects and discussed the overlap in art, architecture, and cultural theory that their work exemplifies. They attempt to disrupt assumed dichotomies and manipulate the boundary between real and illusory space through this process. You can visit their website to check out more of their work.

With the design development phase of the Prospect Avenue Nodal Study nearing completion, students are striving to bring a level of detail to the project that can make the study both feasible and friendly on a more human scale. The KCDC students were joined by several design professionals for a review of their work last Monday. It was helpful to receive feedback from designers and professionals that had an outside perspective, and from this experience each group heard suggestions on what they were doing well and what needed to be pushed further or edited. The positive comments from the reviewers were encouraging as the students continue working on their designs.

Riding on the success of Monday’s review, the KCDC students prepared for the second community engagement meeting at the Gregg/Klice Community Center on Thursday. There was a great turnout of community members that were excited to learn about the student’s efforts. Many were concerned about the future of their neighborhoods, and the students were able to engage them in our design process. They shared their vision for the revitalization of the corridor and were passionate about seeing their community grow and prosper. This transparent communication was a great step in continuing to foster a partnership between the city and the local community as The KCDC strives to shape a positive future for Prospect Avenue.

Learning to Live with Water- A Visit with Internationally Renowned Architect Matthijs Bouw

“We must use the things we learn to change the ways we build our cities” were the final words of Dutch architect Matthijs Bouw at his lecture last Thursday. These were inspiring words for the audience and us, the students of the Kansas City Design Center, who hope to make a difference as we near graduation and enter the field of professional architects, landscape architects, and planners. We are lifelong learners in a world that is experiencing accelerated change, and we are ready for the endeavor of designing a society that works with the people and the environment.

The lecture Building Resilient Cities: Water as Leverage for a Better City examined the future survival of cities, particularly against extreme storms and sea level rise due to climate change. Bouw presented the unknowns of the changing climate and answered how humankind can adapt to this period of drastic change. Bouw explained that in his home country of the Netherlands— a country that is defined by its relationship to water— there was a period of time where the approach to this relationship was strictly to protect the city against water. This strategy included a series of costly dams and caused ecological devastation. Bouw saw the lesson in this and instead began to ask, what if we design and engineer structures that work with the water instead of against it? He called for designers to learn and invent different ways of building with nature. This concept of working with the natural force of water influenced BIG U, a collaborative project with One Architecture (Bouw’s firm), BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), and others. This project incorporates ten continuous miles of infrastructure that builds the coastal resilience of Lower Manhattan against rising sea levels and climate events while also connecting numerous diverse neighborhoods. The BIG U was designed in response to an initiative of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and HUD, known as Rebuild by Design. The design prioritizes the city’s connection with the water, creates vibrant spaces for recreation, provides nature-based solutions for stormwater, and utilizes urban water storage. To see more about this project, check out this video. If you want to hear the full lecture given by Matthijs at the KC Public Library last week, you can listen here.

On Friday, we had the opportunity to hear Matthijs’ perspective and advice on our current project, Prospect Avenue Nodal Study, during a studio visit. He challenged us to think of flaws and employ them to ‘create ingredients for successful development’ as well as engage with the community— building their story and the story for our concept.

We were happy to have the opportunity to host Matthijs Bouw and attend his engaging lecture as well as receive attentive feedback on our project. We hope he enjoyed his visit to KC and his first experience of Arthur Bryants BBQ (he ordered the burnt end sandwich, by the way).