Organization: Kansas City Design Center
Mission: To promote design excellence in the Kansas City built environment through education and public service.
Activities: WTK Research Enhancement:The broader objective of the Kemper Foundation grant is to increase KCDCs capacity for cutting edge research and demonstrable community impact. In part it continued the support of the Research and Engagement Fellow, Thom Allen, charged with assisting in research and development of community relationships beyond what has been traditionally accomplished in KCDCs university -community service-learning project work. From the Neighborhood Prospects: Sustainable Communities by Design completed in the previous grant cycle, work continued to support community efforts to fulfill key recommendations laid forth in the study. Additionally, support through the Hoxie Collective LLC provided guidance under the leadership of Christina Hoxie to advance the KCDC research agenda for graduate studios and affiliated faculty. Through the collaboration and work of Thom Allen and Christina Hoxie, the comprehensive KCDC document Research Capacity Framework was created to expand KCDCs role as a thought leader in the field of Urban Design. This document is an open source, sharable guide to all KCDCs previous research, methods, connections, and applications. It contains an on-call advisor list; the KCDC Approach, Methodology, and Process Manual; Funding Study; and the Peer Institution Analysis (which subsequently led to interest in a community design center conference led by the KCDC). Through the production of this document, the KCDC can continue to disseminate acquired knowledge to neighborhood organizations, city officials, and the broader KC community, and thus attract future affiliated faculty, continuing to build its research capacity and leadership in the Urban Design field.
Prospect Ave. Nodal Study:The purpose of this project is to research, envision, and render tangible critical design interventions that would serve as an implementation platform for the redevelopment of the Prospect Avenue area in light of upcoming Prospect Max bus services. With the corridors divisive histories and their implication upon its physical body and the still persistent socioeconomic and cultural practices, the challenge was to create a coherent urban whole. The project focused on development of a method for discerning critical natural, infrastructural, morphological, historical, and socioeconomic conditions that could be strategically appropriated to create a framework for the generation of a new urban order that capitalizes on the qualities of the place. Rather than applying normative typologies to emerging design questions, the project opened possibilities for the generation of new design inquiries and the discovery of innovative design solutions germane to answering specific needs of improving the urban environment along Prospect Avenue.
East Bottoms Vision Study: The main purpose of the project is to generate a comprehensive vision study and urban design proposal for the creation of an inhabitable pedestrian oriented continuous public realm that connects the Blue River Valley on the East to the Hy-Vee Arena in the West Bottoms. Years of industrial use and appropriation of its river boundaries as flood defense has turned this territory into an urban blank spot, robbing the city of its connection to the waterfront and the existence of a continuous public realm. The ongoing momentum to re-appropriate the citys missing identity parts create an imperative to consider alternative possibilities that can reconnect what has never been disrupted [or never established] into a related whole [and better city]. Towards generating such a vision, the project will focus on developing strategies for assessing found conditions and exploring innovative opportunities for the assembly, re-purposing, and use of the underutilized infrastructural and vacant land structures grounded in the natural assets and their accessibility. The ultimate goal of the project is to offer a perspective for rethinking industrial urban landscapes and urban infrastructure towards the creation of a more inclusive mixed use urban environment and shared public realm where the identity of the place is derived from its constituting parts that are traditionally considered mutually exclusive land use opposites.
NTEE category: Community Improvement & Capacity Building
Secondary category: Environment