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Prairie Block: Designing and Building Community Resilience in the Heartland

Suzan Hampton*, Keith Van de Riet**
*LEED AP BD+C **PhD, AIA



Abstract

Design for community resilience requires a multi-dimensional approach addressing the three pillars of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental. The Prairie Block project in Lawrence, Kansas integrated all three pillars in a novel way to generate a replicable model of sustainable design that can be used in other communities.

Within the context of a U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-identified low-moderate income neighborhood, vanguard public, private, nonprofit, and institutional partnerships were facilitated by university design-build architecture students, faculty, and a community leader. Through this constellation of partners, a formerly under-utilized park was transformed in five months and with zero budget into a thriving neighborhood landmark complete with a community orchard, shade structure, walking trails, and creek access.

The catalyst of this revitalized public amenity is Kaw Pavilion, an artistic shade structure fabricated by the students that honors the area’s Indigenous and other early inhabitants while celebrating the neighborhood’s iconoclastic character and strong activist identity.

Other park improvements include a 35-tree free-fruit community orchard and walking trails, with prairie plants and carved limestone benches, that connect the playground and the creek. Subsequent park additions include a new splash pad, public restroom, and bus stop. The park now serves as a node on a trail network that connects all the neighborhoods in Lawrence.

Prairie Block strengthens a sense of place and fosters sustainability on economic, social, and environmental levels by pulling together shared history, present-day neighborhood identity, and connections to the rest of the city. The Parks and Recreation Department is replicating this partnership and multi-faceted design model in other low-moderate income neighborhoods on the trail system.

Impact Statement *

Prairie Block’s interdisciplinary partnership model and integrative, arts-research-based approach generated a replicable, sustainable development model by breaking convention. Working cooperatively through multiple partnerships and with a creative eye for design and materials resulted in a neighborhood park with robust social and environmental value-adds. The success of the project, completed with zero budget, sparked further city investment in the park. In addition, the City is replicating this model in other low-moderate income neighborhoods in the city.

Prairie Block: Designing and Building Community Resilience in the Heartland

Published:

November 14, 2024 (213 views)

License:


Prairie Block: Designing and Building Community Resilience in the Heartland © 2024 by Suzan Hampton and Keith Van de Riet is licensed under CC-BY 4.0

Project Metadata:

Contributor Roles · Project Site · Sites and Institutions

Part of:
Creating Knowledge in Common

Prairie Block: Designing and Building Community Resilience in the Heartland

Designing for community resilience requires a multi-dimensional approach incorporating the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. (sidenote: Ben Purvis, Yong Mao, and Darren Robinson, “Three Pillars of Sustainability: In Search of Conceptual Origins,” Sustainability Science 14 (2019): 681-695. ↩ ) However, when budgets are tight, achieving these holistically can be difficult.

The challenge begs the question, “Can a community co-design a strategy using strong partnerships to shoulder project cost while fostering social capital and environmental improvements?”

Enter “Prairie Block” in Lawrence, Kansas: an interdisciplinary public/private/nonprofit/institutional partnership and a novel proving ground for breaking convention led by a group of design-build architecture students, faculty, and a community collaborator. (sidenote: See Supporting Materials on design-build pedagogy. ↩ ) Through a committed constellation of partners, an underused, underfunded city park was transformed into a vibrant neighborhood hub celebrating spirit of place and featuring a community fruit tree orchard, iconic shade structure (Kaw Pavilion), trails with seating and prairie plants, and creekside access.

Figure 1: Fabricated entirely of donated, recycled materials, Kaw Pavilion utilizes repurposed utility poles as superstructure and hundreds of recycled street signs as a shingle mural.
Photograph of the top of an artistic park pavilion made of heavy timber utility poles and colorful recycled street signs with tensile fabric stretched across the roof opening to provide shade.
Figure 2: Iconic Kaw Pavilion provides much-needed shade for playground and Lawrence Loop trail users next to Burroughs Creek in Lawrence, Kansas while celebrating neighborhood character and the history of the site. The design was inspired by vernacular precedents in addition to community input and uses all-recycled, locally sourced materials that pull together key eras of local history.
An open structure of wooden columns and colorful tile cladding is built on concrete. To the right is a playground with grass and trees, and a creek beyond.

East Lawrence: A Singular Place

Prairie Block, located in the neighborhood of East Lawrence, Kansas, is in the Kaw Valley Watershed on land long inhabited by the Kaw (Kansa) and Osage peoples. The authors acknowledge these traditional stewards of the land and we are honored to live in harmony with their descendants.

East Lawrence, or “the East Bottoms,” has long been a colorful bastion of underdog fortitude. After the Civil War, the city fathers located the new rail depot in the Bottoms since frequent river floods and mosquito infestations made it undesirable for housing. Subject also to discrimination and redlining over time, the East Bottoms developed as a disadvantaged neighborhood and as the town’s red-light district. (sidenote: Dennis Domer, ed., Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggles for Freedom (Lawrence, Kansas: Douglas County Historical Society, 2022). ↩ )

In the 1970s, a highway bypass plan was proposed that would bisect the neighborhood, destroying homes and uprooting longtime residents. But neighbors organized, fought the proposal, and won. Their success fostered a vibrant, outsider, activist neighborhood identity that continues to this day. (sidenote: See Supporting Materials, "East Lawrence Outsider Art + Culture Field Guide" for a dose of local culture. ↩ )

In 2007, the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association began working with the City to create Burroughs Creek Trail from a defunct rail line, and adjacent Burroughs Creek Park from a former brickyard. (sidenote: “Burroughs Creek Trail and Linear Park,” City of Lawrence, Kansas, accessed February 29, 2024, https://lawrenceks.org/lprd/parks/burroughscreek/ ↩ ) Despite this investment in the neighborhood, the park’s development stagnated, as did the fortunes of East Lawrencians. East Lawrence maintained its historic rating as a Department of Housing and Urban Development low-moderate-income census district. (sidenote: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Low to Moderate Income Population by Tract,” accessed February 29, 2024, https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::low-to-moderate-income-population-by-tract/about. ↩ )

Figure 3: The site before the construction of Burroughs Creek Park, about 2007.
A muddy field with a small, water-filled ditch, several telephone poles, and a backhoe with mounds of dirt. A kid in shorts looks out over the wasteland, his bike on the ground.
Figure 4: Left: Lawrence Vitrified Brick Company, pre-2007. Center: Most industrial buildings and utility poles removed, creek dredged, with new infrastructure, 2007-2008. Right: Playground installed, Burroughs Creek Trail built. The remaining brickworks garage was used as overflow police evidence storage.
Three black and white satellite images show progression of the site over time from a brickworks and yard to creation of a simple playground and trail.
Google Earth (2024)
Figure 5: Left: Burroughs Creek Park and Trail, with the final brickworks garage demolished, 2018. Center: Kaw Pavilion installed, restrooms added, and 35-tree organic fruit orchard planted, 2019. Right: Splash pad built, parking lot improvements and bus stop added, 2022.
Three black and white satellite images show more recent progression of the site over time, from a simple playground and trail to a park with restrooms, a fruit tree orchard, a splash pad, and bus stop.
Google Earth (2024)

Collaboration: A Catalyst for Change

Ten years later, the park had acquired a small playground and multi-use trail but remained an under-utilized, residual space. Then in 2018, community leader and environmental designer Suzan Hampton, now a doctoral student at the University of Kansas (KU), approached KU architecture professor Keith Van de Riet and proposed a town-gown partnership to create a one-block prairie restoration and park shelter celebrating the neighborhood’s place identity. (sidenote: Ashild Lappegard Hauge, “Identity and Place: A Critical Comparison of Three Identity Theories,” Architectural Science Review 50, no. 1 (2011): 44-51, https://doi.org/10.3763/asre.2007.5007. ↩ )

Hampton and Van de Riet met with the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association and the City to assess feasibility. Interest was high, but funding was non-existent. Could the project be accomplished by the combined efforts of Van de Riet’s students enrolled in his design-build studio, the City, neighborhood volunteers, and local nonprofits and businesses…for free?

From this beginning, the project evolved into an experimental, cooperative partnership that fostered community resilience via built and natural environmental interventions. Potential partners were approached to collaborate, and thanks to the strong reputation of KU’s design-build program (sidenote: “Designbuild,” The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, accessed February 29, 2024, https://designbuild.ku.edu/. ↩ ) , all agreed to assist.

Onsite meetings to gather feedback and strategize design ideas began. Some meetings were planned and others were spontaneous, but all included some combination of data gathering, observation, note taking, sketching, photography, and analysis. This methodology aligned both with the integrative arts research approach of process-driven investigation and with the neighborhood’s funky communication style. It allowed Van de Riet and Hampton to gather input serendipitously in places where folks were most comfortable (the pub, their front porch) and allowed ideas to loosely coalesce and a project direction to organically emerge.

Figure 6: Site meeting to assess feasibility with city and community partners including the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, Stormwater Engineering, Public Works, Parks and Rec, and the nonprofit Lawrence Fruit Tree Project.
Six people stand in a field of brown grass talking and gesturing.
Figure 7: Strategizing boulder placement with a volunteer backhoe driver from down the block.
Photograph showing torsos and hands of people gathered around a boulder and looking at photographs laid out on top of it.

Community members also weighed in during public design reviews hosted by the design-build students at the Kaw Valley Seed Fair, at the neighborhood recreation center, and at Delaware Street Commons, the cohousing community next door to the park. (sidenote: “What is Cohousing?” The Cohousing Association of the United States, accessed September 17, 2024, https://www.cohousing.org/what-cohousing/cohousing/ ↩ ) Social media provided a platform for project updates and ongoing conversations with community members.

Figure 8: Left: Staff from the city’s engineering and planning departments provided feedback on schematic designs at the Carnegie Library. Top and bottom right: Informal community gatherings at the local cohousing community and the Kaw Valley Seed Fair brought the project to the neighbors to brainstorm ideas.
Left: Students sit around a long table discussing maps, plans, and models with a civil engineer. Top right: People stand in a large room, some holding wine glasses and gathered around a long table with drawings and models on it. Bottom right: People in winter coats speak with a student while they look at large images and posters on a table and on easels inside a large hall.

Organic Partnership Model

Do-it-yourself collaboration and sharing of labor and resources are deeply embedded values in Kansas. Both European-American immigrant settler and Indigenous beliefs centered around the importance of community and collective work. (sidenote: Dennis Domer, ed., Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggles for Freedom (Lawrence, Kansas: Douglas County Historical Society, 2022); Stephanie Jensen, “The Importance of Community in Indigenous Peoples’ Healing,” National Alliance on Mental Illness, March 4, 2022, https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/March-2022/The-Importance-of-Community-in-Indigenous-Peoples-Healing; “Meitheal," The Mary Robinson Center, accessed September 23, 2024, https://www.maryrobinsoncentre.ie/meitheal.html. ↩ ) Together, these symbiotic cultural values set a tone that informed the commitment of the partners. And rather than pose a barrier, the lack of project budget generated new community/for-profit/nonprofit linkages, a stronger design, and new environmental, economic and social value for the East Lawrence community.

Prairie Block partnership-building was an unplanned process that evolved as the project morphed from concept to form. Longstanding relationships yielded introductions and a trust toehold with contributors of in-kind labor and donated materials to help the students. (sidenote: See Supporting Material, Partners List. ↩ )

Figure 9. With no budget, the project relied entirely on community support and collaboration from nonprofits, the city and county government, the community, and local and regional for-profit businesses.
A diagram with a circle in the center reads “The Project Community.” Four areas around the circle list partners under the headings “Nonprofit,” “Municipal/Government,” “Community,” and “Local/Regional Business.”
Keith Van de Riet

Meantime, digital feedback surveys and formal listening sessions typically used by the City for community engagement were not undertaken due to negative neighborhood perception. Instead, architecture students led open houses and had casual conversations about user preferences in the park. Comments made by families with young children, teens hanging out, after-school program participants, cyclists, and dog-walkers refined the design to celebrate neighborhood identity and increase feelings of ownership.

Many design decisions resulted from this community input, yielding a better end product. Responding to a suggestion to integrate ecology, the design team abstracted a prairie burn as a mural in the shingle cladding. The siting of the pavilion was modified in response to a prairie ecologist who cautioned against shading native plants. And pathway placement was changed for better access thanks to input from disabled adult day program participants who use wheelchairs. Some community members wanted to host book clubs at the pavilion and advocated sizing for three picnic tables, which was honored. And some neighbors felt the column height was disproportionate to the playground, so the height was lowered.

Figure 10: Prairie Block and Kaw Pavilion were powered by the KU School of Architecture & Design’s 68,000 square foot design-build warehouse which includes several digital fabrication labs, flex studio spaces, and student makerspaces such as large-scale prefabrication areas and expansive wood and metal shops. It is the largest academic makerspace in the world.
Three photographs show a large industrial warehouse space, hands holding an architectural model made of wood and tracing paper, and students mocking up full-scale prototypes in a woodshop.
Keith Van de Riet and Suzan Hampton
Video 1. Time-lapse video of the construction of Kaw Pavilion.
Figure 11. Top left: Westar Energy brought heavy machinery to set the repurposed utility poles. Top right: decommissioned aluminum signs were donated by the City and County, and by individuals in the community. Bottom left: locally quarried boulders used for seating were donated by R.D. Johnson Excavating Co. Bottom center: KU architecture students constituted the main design and construction force, donating thousands of hours to the project. Bottom right: Lawrence Parks and Recreation leveraged their existing vendor Hicks Concrete to supply the project with concrete work.
Five photos. Top left: Utility poles are being placed into concrete by a crane and crew. Top right: a contemporary, curved wooden structure made from utility poles sits in a park inside orange construction fencing. Brightly colored tiles laid out in a pattern on the concrete encircle the structure. Bottom left: a student sits on the ground using an air hammer to carve prairie insects onto a boulder. Bottom center: a group of college students stand underneath a wooden structure pointing upward with enthusiasm. Bottom right: the same wooden structure showing completed concrete footers and brightly colored shade shingles installed along the top edge.
Keith Van de Riet and Suzan Hampton

One takeaway that merits reassessment for future projects was the team’s modest success in engaging the Indigenous community as a co-creator on par with the other partners, despite personal introductions and multiple outreach attempts. An Indigenous colleague advised us to respect the community’s reticence to be involved, so we did. However, positive feedback was offered from the father of a Cherokee Nation design-build student who thanked the instructors for using a collaborative approach that was culturally familiar to him. The team was also overjoyed when a Native elder spotted the pavilion from his car and enthusiastically pulled over to share his support. In contrast to non-Native site visitors, he understood the symbolism of the water, grass, and fire roof mural without explanation.

Figure 12. Visual references to the prairie landscape connect the built and natural environments with people, and with each other. Top: “Conjured Topography” by Indigenous artist Mona Cliff, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, 2022. Middle: Controlled prairie burn photo documentation,“here-ing” land art installation by artist Janine Antoni, KU Biological Field Station, Lawrence, Kansas, 2021-present. Bottom: Repurposed street sign mural depicting prairie fire, grasses, and water on the upper portion of Kaw Pavilion, Burroughs Creek Park, Lawrence, Kansas, 2019.
Alt text: Three horizontal images. Top: a close-up of an artistic beads in a wavy pattern. Middle: a prairie fire. Bottom: repurposed street signs made into colorful shingles on atop the wood posts of a pavilion.
Mona Cliff, Dan Hughes, and Keith Van de Riet

Community Celebration of Place

Three months after the project broke ground, a Prairie Block Party grand opening was held on National Prairie Day-National Trails Day with speakers, live music, food trucks, and environmental groups tabling to celebrate this neighborhood win.

Figure 13. Top and bottom left: Eco-focused booths including KU’s Biological Field Station, Jayhawk Audubon, Kaw Valley Native Plant Society, Baker Wetlands, and Prairie Park Nature Center brought animals and prairie knowledge to share with the community during the opening. These partners have continued working with Van de Riet and Hampton to support new design-build projects. Right: stonecarver Karl Ramberg teachers kids how to carve a birdbath into a limestone bench.
Three photos. Top left: Aerial view of park with a playground and pavilion in the foreground, tents and a sidewalk in the background. Bottom left: People stroll through an open sided pavilion. Right: A man in a straw hat shows two children sitting on a rock how to carve a birdbath into the stone.
Jerry Jost and Craig Patterson

Since its opening, Kaw Pavilion has enjoyed year-round use as a gathering place for neighbors, workshop venue, Instagram selfie station, and hangout for teens. Volunteers from nonprofits Monarch Watch and Lawrence Fruit Tree Project regularly use the pavilion for training, while easy creek access gives kids close-up encounters with critters. In 2019, Indigenous artist Mona Cliff projected her expanded media installation “Natives Now” onto the street side of the pavilion (see Figure 14, top) commenting, “I thought it was an interesting structure since the design concept was inspired by Kansa traditional dwellings and was made with reclaimed materials.” (sidenote: Amber Fraley, “The Original Homes on the Range,” Kansas!, November 3, 2021, https://www.travelks.com/kansas-magazine/articles/post/original-homes-on-the-range/. ↩ )

Figure 14. Kaw Pavilion has served a wide assortment of purposes since its opening including environmental outreach, a shady resting spot on the Lawrence Loop bike-ped trail, and an expanded media art installation.
Top left: Kaw Pavilion at dusk with a large projection screen installed between two columns displaying a colorful logo “Natives NOW.” Top right: A large projection screen installed on the pavilion shows an Indigenous couple smiling and wearing traditional dress. Bottom left: a man shows a prairie critter to a mother and child. Bottom right: Five kids and adults relax in the shade of the pavilion with bicycles and cold drinks.
Keith Van de Riet and Suzan Hampton

Prairie Block Project Timeline

As Prairie Block transformed into an activated node of the citywide trail system, the City installed a bus shelter, public bathroom, and large splash pad for toddlers next to Kaw Pavilion. The Monarch Waystation adjacent to the pavilion is used to teach about backyard pollinators, and the park offers community members opportunities for contemplation, free fruit, and connecting with nature and with each other.

Figure 15. The project timeline highlights the early initiatives and outreach that led to the design-build semester. Following the studio project, additional park amenities were added and new activities now take place in the park.
A graphic shows the project timeline starting in early 2007.
Keith Van de Riet and Suzan Hampton (2024)

Nature-Inspired Common Knowledge Reboots Resilience

The Prairie Block partnership model evolved organically to mirror the environmental system it celebrates: the prairie. Its workings and outcomes are symbiotic, regenerative, and resilient. The relationships and process created by the partners are now manifesting in other public spaces to address different community and environmental challenges. And these new project approaches self-adapt depending on the needs of different user groups and sites. (sidenote: See Supporting Material, International Making Cities Livable slides. ↩ )

Economically, Kaw Pavilion and Prairie Block saved taxpayers money by using an in-kind, collaborative approach and by re-using surplus materials. This project capacity-building has created a replicable development model that is delivering economies of scale to other City projects.

In working so closely with the community, the architecture design-build students learned about empathic design and deep listening: skills they will take forward with them to serve other communities during their professional careers.

Combining an integrative arts research approach with a university design-build architecture project brought an underserved neighborhood and project partners together thanks to a deep respect for residents’ shared needs, identity, and cultural history. The resulting public intervention was designed by means of a values-driven approach hinging on collaboration and reciprocity, which is reflective of neighborhood values, and of the prairie ecosystem itself.

By embracing collaboration, Prairie Block has been transformational for East Lawrence, Kansas, and by completing the project with zero budget, its success has sparked city interest in replicating the model to grow environmental, social, and economic sustainability across neighborhoods.

References

“Burroughs Creek Trail and Linear Park.” City of Lawrence, Kansas. Accessed February 29, 2024. https://lawrenceks.org/lprd/parks/burroughscreek/

Chomicki, Guillaume, Roxanne Beinart, Carlos Prada, Kimberly B. Ritchie, and Marjorie Gayle Weber. “Editorial: Symbiotic Relationships as Shapers of Biodiversity.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, February 15, 2022. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/12122/symbiotic-relationships-as-shapers-of-biodiversity/magazine

“Designbuild.” The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design. Accessed February 29, 2024. https://designbuild.ku.edu/.

Domer, Dennis, ed. Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggles for Freedom. Lawrence, Kansas: Douglas County Historical Society, 2022.

Fraley, Amber. “The Original Homes on the Range.” Kansas!, November 3, 2021. https://www.travelks.com/kansas-magazine/articles/post/original-homes-on-the-range/.

Hauge, Ashild Lappegard. “Identity and Place: A Critical Comparison of Three Identity Theories.” Architectural Science Review 50, no. 1 (2011): 44-51. https://doi.org/10.3763/asre.2007.5007.

Jensen, Stephanie. “The Importance of Community in Indigenous Peoples’ Healing.” National Alliance on Mental Illness. March 4, 2022. https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/March-2022/The-Importance-of-Community-in-Indigenous-Peoples-Healing.

“Meitheal.” The Mary Robinson Center. Accessed September 23, 2024. https://www.maryrobinsoncentre.ie/meitheal.html

Purvis, Ben, Yong Mao, and Darren Robinson. “Three Pillars of Sustainability: In Search of Conceptual Origins.” Sustainability Science 14 (2019): 681-695.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Low to Moderate Income Population by Tract.” Accessed February 29, 2024. https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::low-to-moderate-income-population-by-tract/about.

“What is Cohousing?” The Cohousing Association of the United States. Accessed September 17, 2024. https://www.cohousing.org/what-cohousing/cohousing/

Footnotes

  1. Ben Purvis, Yong Mao, and Darren Robinson, “Three Pillars of Sustainability: In Search of Conceptual Origins,” Sustainability Science 14 (2019): 681-695. ↩
  2. See Supporting Materials on design-build pedagogy. ↩
  3. Dennis Domer, ed., Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggles for Freedom (Lawrence, Kansas: Douglas County Historical Society, 2022). ↩
  4. See Supporting Materials, "East Lawrence Outsider Art + Culture Field Guide" for a dose of local culture. ↩
  5. “Burroughs Creek Trail and Linear Park,” City of Lawrence, Kansas, accessed February 29, 2024, https://lawrenceks.org/lprd/parks/burroughscreek/ ↩
  6. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Low to Moderate Income Population by Tract,” accessed February 29, 2024, https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::low-to-moderate-income-population-by-tract/about. ↩
  7. Ashild Lappegard Hauge, “Identity and Place: A Critical Comparison of Three Identity Theories,” Architectural Science Review 50, no. 1 (2011): 44-51, https://doi.org/10.3763/asre.2007.5007. ↩
  8. “Designbuild,” The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, accessed February 29, 2024, https://designbuild.ku.edu/. ↩
  9. “What is Cohousing?” The Cohousing Association of the United States, accessed September 17, 2024, https://www.cohousing.org/what-cohousing/cohousing/ ↩
  10. Dennis Domer, ed., Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggles for Freedom (Lawrence, Kansas: Douglas County Historical Society, 2022); Stephanie Jensen, “The Importance of Community in Indigenous Peoples’ Healing,” National Alliance on Mental Illness, March 4, 2022, https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/March-2022/The-Importance-of-Community-in-Indigenous-Peoples-Healing; “Meitheal," The Mary Robinson Center, accessed September 23, 2024, https://www.maryrobinsoncentre.ie/meitheal.html. ↩
  11. See Supporting Material, Partners List. ↩
  12. Amber Fraley, “The Original Homes on the Range,” Kansas!, November 3, 2021, https://www.travelks.com/kansas-magazine/articles/post/original-homes-on-the-range/. ↩
  13. See Supporting Material, International Making Cities Livable slides. ↩
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Acknowledgements

Prairie Block, within the neighborhood of East Lawrence, Kansas, is in the Kaw Valley Watershed on land that was long inhabited by the Kaw (Kansa) and Osage peoples. The authors acknowledge these traditional stewards of the land and are honored to live peacefully with their descendants. We are grateful for the many contributors to the project including the Lawrence community, City of Lawrence, local businesses and nonprofits, and the KU architecture students: Aaron Lamer, Gregory Deveau, Dylan Dennis, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ernesto Lopez, Tyler Duggan, Dylan Baile, Ido Kenigsztein, Hira Naeem, Wei Liang, and Sana Munir. Banner image: Bruce Wagner.

Supporting Materials

1. Presentation on the Prairie Block project given at the IMCL Conference, Paris, France, 2022. It contains a diagram of the partnership model, relevant photos of the project process, the design-build studio, and the completed project.

2. Prairie Block Partners List lists the community, business, nonprofit, and public partners on the project.

3. East Lawrence Outsider Art & Culture Tour Field Guide gives a feeling for the neighborhood identity and provides context for the direction of the Prairie Block pavilion design. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.eastlawrence.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EL-Outsider-Art-Field-Guide-Including-Map.pdf

4. Studio 509 Instagram feed with frequent project update posts managed by the students: ku_designbuild

Intl_Making_Cities_Livable_Slides.pdf

62.507 MB · Download / View

2024.10.24_Partners_List_-_Prairie_Block_updated.docx

14.687 KB · Download / View

East_Lawrence_Outsider_Art_and_Culture_Tour_Field_Guide_and_Map.pdf

36.395 MB · Download / View






Contributors

 Suzan Hampton†: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation inquiry, Methodology, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Project administration, Reflective Analysis, Relationship Development Outreach, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Keith Van de Riet†: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation inquiry, Methodology, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Project administration, Reflective Analysis, Relationship Development Outreach, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Dylan Baile: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Dylan Dennis: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Gregory Deveau: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Tyler Duggan: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Robert Edberg-Oostdik: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Ido Kenigsztein: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Aaron Lamer: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Wei Liang: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Ernesto Lopez: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Sana Munir: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach
Hira Naeem: Data curation, Investigation inquiry, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach

Roles

 Conceptualization: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Data curation: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Formal Analysis: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Funding acquisition: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Investigation and inquiry: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Methodology: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Production - Technical: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Production - Creative: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Production - Social: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Project administration: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Reflective Analysis: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Relationship Development and Outreach: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†, Dylan Baile, Dylan Dennis, Gregory Deveau, Tyler Duggan, Robert Edberg-Oostdik, Ido Kenigsztein, Aaron Lamer, Wei Liang, Ernesto Lopez, Sana Munir,, Hira Naeem.
Resources: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Supervision: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Validation: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Visualization: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Writing – original draft: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
Writing – review & editing: Suzan Hampton†, Keith Van de Riet†.
† denotes by-line credit.

Completed

 Between March 2018 and June 2022

Website:

 Project Site

Sites and Institutes

 Burroughs Creek Park in Lawrence, Kansas, USA, City of Lawrence, Kansas Parks and Recreation Dept.
The University of Kansas, School of Architecture & Design

Keywords

 Prairie Plants Art And Ecology Community Collaboration Co Design Methods Eco Art Collaboration; Collective Action; Public Interest Design Public Collaboration Interdisciplinarity Partnerships Collective Participation Community Engagement Art As Research Arts Integrated Research Resilience Sustainability Sustainable Design

Disciplines

 Architecture Ecology Art Urban Planning Community Based Design Government Landscape Architecture Transportation

Views

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Collection

 Creating Knowledge in Common

Collection Indexing Tags

 #Community Art #Design-Build #Placemaking #Service Learning #Funding Model #Reciprocity #Scalability #Capacity building #Infrastructure