Ennead Architects and BNIM have designed the new building for the College of Architecture Planning and Design at Kansas State University. Responding to the College's focus on the designer as an instrument for positive change in the world, the new educational facility supports a curriculum-based approach to reconnect the act of design to making through interdisciplinary collaboration and focus on direct fabrication.
The goal of the building was to place students at the center of the experience. The central feature of the project is the "collaboration corridor" - an axial three-story atrium - surrounded by studios, crit spaces, exhibition areas, collaboration pods and faculty offices to foster exchange of ideas and research.
The new facility design meant to both harmonize with the historic Seaton Hall East and Mechanics Hall while at the same time demonstrating to the campus community what progressive architecture can be.
The landscape architecture was created by Confluence.
Photography: Timothy Hursley