New Downtown Design Center Trains Architects In Kansas City

"When top architecture students from the University of Kansas and Kansas State set up shop downtown next month, it will be an academic addition welcomed on both sides of the border.

The innovative Missouri campus, authorized for up to 16 graduate students from the University of Kansas and Kansas State University schools of architecture, will be on the ground level of the Wyandotte Garage at 1020 Baltimore Ave. The 10,000-square-foot space was last occupied by the La Petite Academy child-care center.

The new location of the Kansas City Design Center is expected to become both a training ground in urban design issues for the students from Lawrence and Manhattan entering their fifth and final year of study, and a showcase for exhibits and public access to their work and ideas."

"John Gaunt, the dean of the KU architecture school, said the downtown facility was the culmination of a joint program that began in the early 1990s on the campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City."

"The studio will be led by Richard Farnan, a retired partner at HNTB Corp. and a KU architecture professor. Daniel Serda, the executive director of the Kansas City Design Center, also will relocate to the new space."