KCDC Student Experiences the WB's in Action

This year, KCDC’s studio functions both at the downtown studio location as well as on the Manhattan KS Campus.During a weekend trip, the liveliness of the West Bottoms pulled KCDC student, Anne Pham, who is working from Manhattan, into the First Fridays scene. Pham was filling up on gas at Conoco off 12th Street, when she saw under the I-670 bridge the once vacant parking lot was populated with tents of vendors and consumers. Pham, not a Kansas City local, was surprised by the large, lively event on which what was before an empty pavilion. This was the Strawberry Swing Fall Fest, which brings hundreds of visitors to explore local makers wares as well as the unique architecture of the West Bottoms.

 The KCDC Studio went on a site tour with Professor Vladimir Krstic at the beginning of the school year, but during this mid-week day tour the West Bottoms was sparsely populated except for a few trains and freight trucks, expressing it’s important uses by shipping, manufacturing, and light industrial businesses. Yet, the feeling of the West Bottoms was perhaps better communicated by the overwhelming presence of those who love it. This weekend was eye-opening for this member of the Manhattan studio group as it was the first time Pham had seen the site in action to understand the importance of fostering spaces that can adjust to different uses, activities, and crowds.

The KCDC Studio is back in the West Bottoms!

The 2022-23 KCDC Urban Design Studio has officially kicked off the new academic year with a great new project opportunity that puts us back in the West Bottoms area. The project is focused on a district redevelopment opportunity in partnership with SomeraRoad (the developer) and HOK (the lead design team), and the KCDC is consulting on aspects of public realm, community engagement, and some design development.
Our studio is still developing conceptual diagrams to demonstrate environmental concerns, traffic circulation, railway activity, and overall access to the site as we prepare to gather more specific information targeting topics of interest as we move forward. Our studio’s collaboration with SomeraRoad and HOK has furthered our professional and educational experiences as we continue the analysis and design process. Looking forward, we will be examining physical elements, environmental issues, and demographic data to help illustrate a conceptual understanding of the West Bottoms site.

In the above maps you can see information about the floodplain and land quality for the West Bottoms Area, with the SomeraRoad redevelopment site highlighted in magenta.

On Monday evening, the KCDC helped to organize and hold a public meeting in partnership with HOK that was focused on traffic and business access needs in the direct project site and its surrounding context. Our students were able to personally connect with businessowners, tenants, and professionals on the design team to better understand the issues we must address to redevelop the area in a way that benefits the existing businesses in the West Bottoms. We look forward to meeting new community members and discussing the next steps of research and analysis to meet our project goals.

Designing the 'Intersection' Scheme

rendering of the Intersection design proposal

As many people may know, here at KCDC we are working towards the development of the abandoned Kessler Park Reservoir. Although our designs and proposals for the project are educational in purpose, we hope to influence the city and community to continue development of the site past our time working on the project.
As a refresher, there are three proposals being developed by our team of students: Preservation, Intersection, and Integration. I am part of the Intersection group, in which we are proposing to create pathways through the reservoir that cause minimal interference but allow community and even city-wide events to occur.

Currently, my team and I are focusing on detailing an overhead canopy structure which will provide shade for the users of the space below. The above image shows a model we have created to understand the construction.
Underneath these canopies, we are designing what we call ‘pods’ which hold restrooms, concessions, and storage areas to allow a functional usage of the space for those utilizing the open recreational areas. An example of a pod can be seen in the picture above. The other detail we are currently developing is seating within the reservoir. We believe that providing seating under the structure and next to the pods will allow users of the space to relax, observe, and enjoy the space we have provided. You can see and example of the seating in the rendering below.

On behalf of the KCDC we want to thank everyone for the support, we just had a professional review at the beginning of last week to push the project in a direction that will allow for detailed final feedback from the public at our community meeting on April 5th (check out details here). We hope you can all join us and move this vision closer to reality!

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.