https://vimeo.com/127458670

KCUR-FM, the Kansas City NPR affiliate, invited architecture students from The University of Kansas to collaborate with them in developing a flexible and mobile platform from which they could more readily engage local-area residents in situ, while also conveying the brand of KCUR’s programming. The studio initially divided up into four teams to meet with KCUR in a two-hour design charrette in KCUR’s offices in Kansas City, MO. While there, they developed presentations based on exercises where they explored and documented the experiential needs of the proposed project’s end-users, and from that rapidly prototyped design concepts for immediate feedback with the client.

Further iteration occurred with Kansas City design/build firms Hufft Projects, M2Make, Second Life Studios, and Studio Build. Each student team met with one of the firms to refine their initial concepts and project narrative. Equipped with professional insight into the process of developing a project for an actual client, each student team developed scaled mock-ups and cost estimations for each of their schemes, as well as conceptual renderings and a narrative presentation to present to the client. Presented with four different schemes, KCUR chose two concepts – an A-Frame scheme and a lightweight box scheme – to go ahead and proceed with for the students to fabricate.

The studio then collaborated as a unit to refine the two selected schemes in order for them to work in tandem, and began by specifying materials based on observations and requirements from the client. Lightweight aluminum extrusions were included in the design to allow for mobility and durability, while Baltic birch plywood panels were incorporated to convey a refined natural aesthetic. Students developed additional mock-ups that included backlighting acrylic panels etched on a CNC router with KCUR-branded graphics and maps of Kansas City, a lightweight overhead canopy system to provide shade, and acoustic tabletop boxes designed to passively project sound from mobile electronics.

Conceived of as an extension of KCUR’s storytelling capacity, the prototype’s intent is to support new and innovative forms of journalism that take a ‘boots-on-the-ground’ approach to reporting on issues that affect our communities today. The future impact of the prototype will therefore continue to evolve as new events and opportunities for KCUR to engage the community arise. For the studio, this process of participatory design/build exercises coupled with rapid prototyping and client interaction has allowed for the students to foster collaborative environments while exposing them to real world design challenges.

STUDIO 
Instructor: Matt Kleinmann 
Students: Olivia Brown, Megan Burns, Lex DeWitt, Drew Hinderliter, Matt Kenney, Charlie Lauberth, Yutian Lin, Luke McElwain, Jack Pearson, Jack Schwartz, Emily Stockwell, Louis Weishaar, Hannah Wobbe, Kevin Sloan & Rao Fu

KCUR: Ron Jones, Nico Leone, Sarah Morris, Laura Ziegler, Stephen Steigman, Deloris Phelps, Briana O’Higgins, & Jeanne Rooney

DESIGN/BUILD PARTNERS: 
M2Make, Studio Build, Hufft Projects & Second Life Studios