Archinect - News

BIG teams up with University of Kansas students and faculty to deliver the new Makers’ KUbe design

2024-04-22T15:24:00-04:00

BIG in partnership with BNIM and the University of Kansas have unveiled plans for a new six-story creative academic space that will help consolidate formerly separate learning environments for students in the School of Architecture & Design. Comprising a diagrid frame, the Makers’ KUbe is a 50,000-square-foot mass timber cube structure connecting the school’s renovated Marvin Hall and Chalmers Hall buildings from 1908 and 1978, respectively.

Mahbub Rashid, the new Dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, said: "BIG’s willingness to both listen to us and push us has conceived a project that celebrates our history and embodies the ambitious optimism that animates our academic mission."

Image by Kilograph

As Rashid mentioned, the design is the product of a collaborative effort that brought together students, faculty, and board members in order to create a hub-like embodiment of KU’s four primary principles: "to become an emblem of creativity; to create a connec...

University of Kansas details multipronged campus gateway project with HNTB and Multistudio

2023-08-16T16:43:00-04:00

HNTB and Multistudio have released details for a planned campus gateway district and athletics complex upgrades at the University of Kansas’ main flagship location in Lawrence.

The project will cover the school’s existing 102-year-old David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium and provide updated amenities to the adjacent Anderson Family Football Complex while creating a dynamic new mixed-use district at the intersections of 11th and Mississippi Streets. Architects and school officials are both hoping it will help the Big 12 school become an athletic powerhouse while boosting the regional economy.

Image: © HNTB + Multistudio

“The corner of 11th & Mississippi will forever transform this part of campus and provide a memorable experience for visitors entering the KU campus,” Gerardo Prado, Vice President and National Sports Practice Leader for HNTB, said in a news announcement. “These types of transformational projects and vision is what drives us towards excellence in the delivery of our desi...

University of Kansas appoints BIG to reimagine its school of architecture

2023-03-10T10:44:00-05:00

The University of Kansas’ School of Architecture and Design has appointed Bjarke Ingels Group to design a new multidisciplinary design school. BIG’s commission, which includes space planning, programming, and concept design, seeks to establish a “redesigned home for the school that respects the established character of the site while also being optimized for innovative teaching and research.”

The school’s expansion follows a decade of increasing enrolment numbers and an expanded program offering. While details of BIG’s proposal have not yet been announced, the school suggests that BIG’s plan will involve an engagement with the school’s existing facilities on Jayhawk Boulevard.

"For an architect, each project is kicked off with a crash course seeking to educate ourselves in an entirely new field, because we rarely design for other ar...

University of Kansas names Mahbub Rashid as new dean of the School of Architecture & Design

2022-05-09T12:14:00-04:00

The University of Kansas has announced Mahbub Rashid as the new dean of their School of Architecture & Design. Rashid has been serving as interim dean of the school since 2019, and will now oversee the school’s 1,000 students and 60 faculty and staff. The post was previously held by Mahesh Daas, who in 2019 co-wrote and edited a book on the future of robotic architecture.

Rashid has been a member of the University of Kansas’ faculty for seventeen years, serving in a variety of roles including associate dean of research and graduate studies. His work sits at the intersection of history and theory, environmental behavior, and psychology, with an overall goal of exploring the social, cultural, cognitive, and aesthetic functions of buildings and cities.

“I am most grateful for the opportunity to become the dean of KU’s School of Archit...

University of Kansas students converted shipping containers into housing for community shelter guests in need of quarantined spaces

2021-11-10T19:46:00-05:00

As part of a program at the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Design, a cohort of students retrofitted twelve shipping containers to serve as private housing for homeless people during the pandemic.

The project, located at Kansas’ Lawrence Community Shelter, is called Monarch Village. It was established in response to the need for adequate quarantine spaces for its population when the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020. The initiative is part of the non-profit Studio 804, a comprehensive design-build program offered through the school where graduate students design and build a LEED Platinum project. Monarch Village is the studio’s sixteenth.

According to Studio 804, the dwellings offer much-needed privacy for families while allowing guests access to services at the shelter. It is hoped that this project will be a precedent to move away from housing the homeless in gymnasium-like rooms full of bunk beds, an arrangement that makes isolating impossible.

Construction on th...

The University of Kansas names Hui Cai as next chair of the Department of Architecture

2021-08-25T12:06:00-04:00

The University of Kansas School of Architecture and Design has named Dr. Hui Cai as the next chair of the Department of Architecture.

Cai has been at the University of Kansas since 2014 working as an associate professor of architecture and associate director of the KU Institute of Health + Wellness Design. With a focus on cross-cultural studies on healthcare design, she has helped build the institute into a community and industry research asset. The institute has worked with companies and communities to improve rural health care access, develop innovative health care facilities, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cai received her doctorate in evidence-based design from the Georgia Institute of Technology after earning a Bachelor’s and Master’s in architecture at Southeast University in Jiangsu, China and the National University of Singapore, respectively. This time was also spent practicing architecture in the region. In 2011, she was awarded the International Academy Award in ...

Get Lectured: The University of Kansas, Fall '20

2020-10-30T17:57:00-04:00

For the Fall The University of Kansas' School of Architecture & Design collaborated with the school's Institute for Health + Wellness Design to develop a series of lectures addressing health care design.

Archinect's ongoing Get Lectured series features each school's lecture series and their graphic design prowess with graphic lecture posters.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Their "Grand Rounds" lecture series dives into healthcare design during and after the current Covid-19 pandemic. KU Associate Professor of Architecture Keith Van de Riet shares, "Amid the pandemic, this timely lecture series brings academic and industry leaders currently navigating the technological, social and environmental factors that are forever changing architectural research and practice,

Broken into three discussions the first round of lectures took place on Sept 10th focusing on Covid/Care/Community. Speakers such as Ra...

Kansas Architecture Dean Mahesh Daas on the future of robotic architecture

2018-02-01T14:37:00-05:00

a new book co-written and co-edited by Mahesh Daas, dean of the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, argues that robotics can and soon will be even further integrated into the design processes at the heart of architecture. [...] "We talk about robots and artificial intelligence for design," Daas said. "How we use robots in the design process, moving from the design process to prototype things."

"In that sense, robots become partners in exploring and designing," Kansas Architecture Dean Mahesh Daas says. "So it's not that robots are going to take over, but the distinction between robots and us begins to get blurred. One becomes the extension of the other."

Architecture students at 17 schools will get licensed quicker with help from NCARB's new licensure program, IPAL

2016-12-13T19:36:00-05:00

The recently introduced IPAL, or Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure, promises to streamline the architectural licensure process for students at 17 universities and colleges by incorporating the Architectural Experience Program into the curriculum. Licensure, which is required by a majority of the fifty states and governing agencies in Canada, usually takes a few years of intense study and rigorous examinations after one's initial formal education is complete to attain. Initiated by NCARB, the in-school program will enable students to also take the ARE. Here's a full transcript of the press release:

Friends,The road to licensure for architects is getting shorter and shorter, thanks to a recent initiative spearheaded by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB).

The Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) provides students the opportunity to complete requirements for licensure while they are still earning their degree. Through the initiative, sc...

University of Kansas alumnus launches architecture scholarship for students from rural areas

2016-01-12T17:51:00-05:00

[University of Kansas alumnus + architect Michael Cummings] and his wife have donated $1.6 million to establish the Michael A. Cummings Scholarship for architecture students at KU, with a preference for those from rural communities...'I’m hoping this scholarship will help some people who will have a similar experience to what I have had, which is to find a career that wasn’t on their radar and from there to end up with a wonderful and fulfilling career.'

Read the University of Kansas' full press statement here.

Mahesh Daas named as new KU architecture dean

2015-03-23T15:53:00-04:00

Kansas University has hired a new dean for the School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Mahesh Daas, professor and chairman of the Department of Architecture at Ball State University, will start the job June 15, KU announced Monday. Daas will succeed Dean John Gaunt, who has led the school more than 20 years. Daas is known for innovation in design computing, architectural robotics, design thinking, innovation methods and management, according to KU.

Previously: University of Kansas architecture dean John Gaunt stepping down after 20 years

University of Utah names new architecture dean

2014-04-14T17:46:00-04:00

University of Kansas faculty member Keith Diaz Moore has been selected as the next dean of the the University of Utah's College of Architecture and Planning, university officials announced Monday. Diaz Moore's term as dean is expected to begin Aug. 1, pending final approval by U. President David Pershing and the university's board of trustees.

University of Kansas architecture dean John Gaunt stepping down after 20 years

2014-04-03T14:59:00-04:00

After 20 years as the dean of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, John Gaunt will miss the “intensity of the wider university community involvement,” but looks forward to being more engaged with his students. [...] “No regrets for those 20 years,” Gaunt said. “I have a sense of accomplishment and involvement and value, and the teaching part of it has been an enrichment, which from here on I’ll have a more direct and defined involvement in, but really a different kind of challenge.”