Situation
The Greater Kansas City region is projected to grow from 2 million
to a population of 2.7 million residents over the next 30 years (MARC 2011).
The Mid-American Regional Council (MARC) has undertaken a multi-decade planning
effort to help coordinate this new growth in an urban context of changing
demographic and economic patterns. These changes will challenge historic
spatial form, mobility choices, infrastructure construction and maintenance,
available energy, preservation of environmental resources, and the provision of
public services. Equally important is preserving the character of established neighborhoods
as desirable places to live and work, while investing in targeted
underperforming areas to induce new and sustained vitality.
A comprehensive strategy for directing regional and local
planning towards a more sustainable future has been illustrated through the MARC
document Creating Sustainable Places: A
Regional Plan for Sustainable Development. Key principles guiding
sustainability are centered on economics, society, and the environment. Sustainable
development includes mixed uses, a variety of housing types of graduated
prices, walkability, multi-modal transportation options, and integration with
environmental assets. Completed in 2010, a MARC report titled Transportation Outlook 2040 identified
six metro transportation corridors to serve as a unifying framework to begin
implementing coordinated sustained development across the region and connect
diverse and dispersed communities.
The 2012 Community Planning and Design studio will focus on
one of the six corridors: US Highway 40, an 18-mile west-east corridor located on
the eastern side of Kansas City. Beginning at Prospect Avenue in eastern Kansas
City, the corridor progresses eastward, roughly following I-70, and terminates
at Adams Dairy Parkway in Blue Springs. It is a highly
diverse corridor that includes urban, suburban, and exurban settings, and
offers many design opportunities.
As the University Partner on this corridor, the Kansas State University
Retrofit 40 studio will examine the range of conditions present in our corridor
study area to identify issues, dilemmas, and opportunities, and develop
strategies for addressing the goals of the Creating Sustainable Places
Initiative. The studio will study the corridor through an iterative process of
analytical and strategic mapping, leading to a set of preliminary planning and
design proposals. The projects will range in ambition and scale, and will
provide ideas that can be advanced by MARC, community partners, and
professional consultants.
Organization
The Retrofit 40 studio will be organized into two
phases. The first phase (weeks one
- four) focuses on identification of critical dilemmas and developing potential
strategies for revitalizing the Highway 40 corridor as a catalyst for
sustainable development in the eastern Kansas City Region. This phase will be conducted as a
shared investigation of the class as a whole, with working groups formed for
short periods of time where every student is responsible for teaching and
learning from each other. This first phase will culminate in an individual
statement of intent that draws on the work of the studio and proposes a
strategy to be developed in depth over the second half of the semester. The second phase (weeks five - eight)
involves work in small design teams to articulate a strategic design proposal
driven by your statements of intent. Documentation is due at the end of each
week.
The studio will coordinate with MARC, Design Workshop (MARC’s
selected professional consultant for the Highway 40 corridor), planning
representatives from municipalities adjacent to the corridor, and stakeholder
representatives identified by our partners throughout the development of your
work. The studio will culminate in
a book and exhibit presented at the Kansas City Design Center (KCDC) on July 13th.
