KCDC Administrative Update

The Kansas City Design Center would like to share an update on administrative/leadership changes to ensure our project stakeholders, community partners, and supporters are kept fully informed as we continue to carry out our collaborative mission. These are exciting changes as we continue to build our program, fortify our operational resilience and capitalize on the demonstrated staff talent and abilities. With the start of 2022, Mariah Randell, previously the KCDC Project Coordinator, assumed the role of KCDC Director of Operations and Outreach, and will continue to build the program’s partnerships and expand collaborative engagements throughout the city and the region as well as handle the day-to-day operations of the Center. Vladimir Krstic, Academic Programs Director at the KCDC, will continue his academic leadership role guiding and executing the program’s educational mission for the foreseeable future though he will retire from his professorial position at K-State effective June 2022.
We look forward to continuing our advocacy for a better built environment in Kansas City and beyond and focusing on an innovative, sustainable, and equitable future in architecture, design, and planning. Please reach out to Mariah Randell (mrandell@kcdesigncenter.org) with any questions you may have!

Public Meetings and Critical Feedback

The studio has been busy furthering design development within all three of the design schemes. In order to do so, we completed two professional reviews and two community meetings, the most recent happening last week. We received great feedback from both groups.

Our public meeting last week was kindly hosted by the NEKC Chamber of Commerce. [Note: if you weren’t able to attend, you can view the presentation on youtube here, and leave feedback here] Our studio prepared a presentation that not only explained our research and analysis and overall master plan, but also did a deeper dive into all three design schemes. After the presentation, community members were able to walk around and learn more about each scheme and provide specific feedback on those designs. Each of the three groups used models, drawings, and precedent studies to help explain their design process and engage with the community members. While each group received varying feedback based on their designs, it was informative to help us move forward with our designs. Some of the main comments/concerns referenced safety and security in the park, lighting, considerations of phasing, and further programmatic consideration.

With all the feedback we have received from not only community members but also from area design professionals, we have been working to incorporate everyones concerns and suggestions. Through the use of analytical and study models, strategic processes and other techniques we hope to push the project even further to meet the needs of the community. Today, we meet with our Advisory team make up of our project stakeholders to make sure the project is on track and meeting its goals. We are also looking forward to presenting the project at the next Pendleton Heights neighborhood associations meeting on March 8th.

Meet our new Studio teammates!

A snapshot of our Open House in December, where the community was invited to view the design proposals for the project and talk with students about their ideas.

Phase two of the Kessler Park Water Reservoir Re-visioning has begun. Following our Open House in December, students have continued to develop design iterations for the project. Last week, the KCDC urban design studio met with a group of artists and arts advocates from the Northeast neighborhoods with the goal of exploring how the project can incorporate the arts into each of the three different design schemes. Now that we have conducted a premliminary meeting with these arts leaders, we hope to convene a larger meeting with other artists, arts advocates and leaders, to get broad feedback on our proposals moving forward.

Alexa Radley

Sloane Gleeson

Becca Boles

Reagen Orr

Jay Olsen

This semester, we welcome five additional students to the KCDC’s Urban Design Studio. As we begin more indepth design studies, the added perspectives of these incoming students has become influential in pushing the project. These students come from the following areas of study: Alexa Radley, Architecture; Becca Boles, Regional & Community Planning; Jay Olsen, Interior Architecture; Sloane Gleeson, Interior Architecture; Reagen Orr, Interior Architecture. We’re excited to see how the project grows with our new studio teammates!

Looking forward, we have a series of meetings that will be critical for project development including our next professional review on February 18th, our first community meeting of the year on February 22nd, and our next meeting with our project advisory group on March 2nd. It will be a busy month before spring break!