As the students of Studio 804 gather in the empty parking lot on a late autumn morning, the churning sky mirrors the gray expanse of the abandoned Farmland Industries plant. Behind chain-link and barbed-wire fencing, rusted pipes snake over grass-studded railroad tracks, connecting old warehouses and corroded storage units that once held chemicals.
A few minutes after 8, architect Dan Rockhill, the director of Studio 804, pulls in and parks his truck inches from the "No Trespassing" sign posted on the front gate.
"This is a toxic site," Rockhill warns as his class — graduate students in the University of Kansas' School of Architecture, Design and Planning — gathers in front of a rickety warehouse. "In fact, some of you are glowing."
They follow him inside.
The place is a dump. He points to the bent lid of a refrigerator-sized toolbox. "A lot of crackheads and meth addicts come through here," he says, adding theft to a list of hazards and hardships endured by past Studio 804 students.
But in this grimy warehouse, often without heat, Rockhill and his students have constructed award-winning buildings slice by slice, transporting each prefabricated chunk to sites in Lawrence, Greensburg and Kansas City and piecing them together like gigantic jigsaw puzzles.
The design-build concept, which involves students in both the conception and construction of buildings, isn't unique to this group at KU. Universities across the country train future architects this way. What puts Studio 804 in a different category is its ambition. It builds each project in the span of a single semester. That distinction hasn't gone unrecognized. Last year, Rockhill's program earned the Education Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. It also has beaten scores of professional firms to win Architecture Magazine's "Home of the Year" award — twice. Studio 804's work has been cited in publications as far afield as India and South Africa. Last summer, Rockhill lectured in Finland about the innovative program.
On this fall morning, Rockhill's newest crop of students is reaping the benefits. The university has spent $2 million to upgrade Studio 804's classroom. No more toxic warehouse. At their new work area, inside nearby East Hills Business Park, the students go from hushed to almost giddy. Inside the new, pristine space, the students' voices echo through the empty 67,000 square feet.
"Anybody got a skateboard?"
"Dude, we all need to get Rollerblades!"
"We don't need Rollerblades. We can have office-chair races."
Rockhill doesn't have time for games. He doesn't have time to wait for electricity or desks, either. By the light of a laptop projection on the wall, his crew gets down to business. They haven't been in class a full week yet, but they're already evaluating opportunities for their 2010 design-build project.
Several students have drafted letters or put together PowerPoint presentations, but Rockhill fumes. Their work is too vague. They're missing key components.
"This is not your usual tippy-tappy studio," he says. "We kick ass here."
Studio 804 is more than a class. It's a business.
And it needs a sale to get back in the black.
It's 6:55 a.m. on a Wednesday, and a handful of barely awake students lumber up the skeleton of a house in the Prescott neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas.
The members of Studio 804 perch on the dusty ledge of what will become the garage of this two-bedroom home. One student tentatively pokes at a day-old piece of carrot cake left amid the construction rubble and then digs in to a sugary breakfast.
As they sip coffee from gas-station cups, the students glance at their watches. Because they struggle to rise in time to make the early morning meeting, many have self-imposed penalties for tardiness. One student has promised to wear a Sharpie mustache when she's late. Another has pledged to shave his hair into a mohawk.
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with the economy today it's quite hard to sell a property newly built, though it has an amazing architectural design but it has to be very amazing and unique to sell it to rich and can afford people
Would like to contact for Mr. Dan Rochill of Studio 804 @ The KU Kansas University for further discussion of architectual plans for future green and eco friendly entertainment facility for Kansas City. Please forward such information upon request.
Thank you,
Ron Haynes
Would like to contact for Mr. Dan Rochill of Studio 804 @ The KU Kansas University for further discussion of architectual plans for future green and eco friendly entertainment facility for Kansas City. Please forward such information upon request. Thank you, Ron Haynes
Professor Lesnikowski makes an obvious point here in that there remains a limitation to what one can realize with this methodology. A few firms such as Marmol Radziner in LA have maintain a high level of design sophistication in the design-build model, though even they seem to have run into the limits of scale. And, Professor Rockhill can be commended that the design of both his professional work and the projects in Studio 804 have been continually executed at a high level. There are certainly lessons to be gleaned from the Studio 804 process: budgeting, teamwork, construction exposure, sustainability, management, and responsibility in real time. But, the reality remains that most design-build companies are primarily construction entities that pump out mediocre buildings. Also, one must keep in mind that these residential projects are rather simple to construct due to their small scale. The design, engineering, and constructability issues one must deal with in most projects are far more complex.
What is shocking is that an M.Arch program has such narrowly focused options for a professional degree – the Design-Build path or a Health & Wellness route? Neither reflects the majority of project typologies architects must regularly engage in. The time and energy spent in such an endeavor ultimately replaces the investigation of a large, complex, urban, and theoretically rich project with labor on a small project. Yale, for example, also runs a design build studio, but this occurs in the first year of the M.Arch I program as a sort of ‘introduction to architecture’ before students proceed on to more multifaceted advanced design studios. The question is whether the design studio projects should increase in project complexity as one moves through the program – so students learn to deal with and unify larger scale, complex programs, diverse contexts, conceptual explorations, urban sites, and/or advanced materials – or rather, if the climax of a graduate program should focus on a simplified building typology, however refined, that facilitates rapid construction by an unskilled labor force. The goals of Studio 804 certainly have a place in the school’s curriculum, but one must question the outsized significance it holds in relation to a narrow professional path.
Marcus Carter, KU '00, Yale '04, Steven Holl Architects
Christopher Lee, KU '00, Columbia '05, Bernard Tschumi Architects
Professor Lesnikowski makes an obvious point here in that there remains a limitation to what one can realize with this methodology. A few firms such as Marmol Radziner in LA have maintain a high level of design sophistication in the design-build model, though even they seem to have run into the limits of scale. And, Professor Rockhill can be commended that the design of both his professional work and the projects in Studio 804 have been continually executed at a high level. There are certainly lessons to be gleaned from the Studio 804 process: budgeting, teamwork, construction exposure, sustainability, management, and responsibility in real time. But, the reality remains that most design-build companies are primarily construction entities that pump out mediocre buildings. Also, one must keep in mind that these residential projects are rather simple to construct due to their small scale. The design, engineering, and constructability issues one must deal with in most projects are far more complex. What is shocking is that an M.Arch program has such narrowly focused options for a professional degree – the Design-Build path or a Health & Wellness route? Neither reflects the majority of project typologies architects must regularly engage in. The time and energy spent in such an endeavor ultimately replaces the investigation of a large, complex, urban, and theoretically rich project with labor on a small project. Yale, for example, also runs a design build studio, but this occurs in the first year of the M.Arch I program as a sort of ‘introduction to architecture’ before students proceed on to more multifaceted advanced design studios. The question is whether the design studio projects should increase in project complexity as one moves through the program – so students learn to deal with and unify larger scale, complex programs, diverse contexts, conceptual explorations, urban sites, and/or advanced materials – or rather, if the climax of a graduate program should focus on a simplified building typology, however refined, that facilitates rapid construction by an unskilled labor force. The goals of Studio 804 certainly have a place in the school’s curriculum, but one must question the outsized significance it holds in relation to a narrow professional path. Marcus Carter, KU '00, Yale '04, Steven Holl Architects Christopher Lee, KU '00, Columbia '05, Bernard Tschumi Architects
@ W.Lesnikowski-- I am saddened to hear, Lesnikowski, you speak so lowly of the education myself and my fellow 15 students have received over the past 10+ months. As stated in previous posts, the lessons learned reach far beyond that of merely building trades. While critical issues surrounding small scale building construction are obviously a component of our eductaion, they represent only a fraction of our collective efforts. I guess I am not surprised that the larger architectural community feels that all we do is build, as our final product is a building. Unfortunatly, what is not apparant, though through no lack of effort on our part, is the amount of research into new technologies, design ethics and advanced fabrication processes which are far beyond current practices. Few are familiar with the great lengths we went through to understand the needs of the community at large and the neighborhood in specific. Nor do they understand the effort that goes into creating a singular, cohesive design with 16 cooks in the kitchen (not an easy undertaking). It is one thing to be the final say in all things design, its entirely another to design in a collective and cooperative manner. I too have had the opportunity and privilage to work with a large firm in Chicago as part of the design team on many large scale projects in Shanghai, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Seol and several projects in the U.S. They ranged from mixed use skyscrapers to several million square foot residential complexes, hospitals, schools and museums; I am not suggesting that my capacity in this work was at the same level as yours, I still engaged the design/construction process at a level far beyond that of an intern. While I learned a great deal during this period of time, there is a very specific reason I chose this specific graduate program over others at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and U.Penn (all of which I had been accepted to). After an architectural education career which consisted of countless design studios and structural/graphic design/research classes, something was still missing; and again in my professional career, something still seemed to be lacking. What I have found in Studio 804 which I have not been able to in the past 10 years is confidence; the confidence to stand up among the architectural community and defend the work we have produced as something far more than just a building. The confidence to know that I can enter the practice as a force to be reckoned with and produce architecture which responds to its time, place and purpose without regret.
To Wojciech Lesnikowski - it is not about building, it has never been about making builders. It is about making students responsible for their designs by forcing them to understand every single aspect of what they create. While your teaching style has its place, Studio 804 is far more valuable, as far as architecture education is concerned, than using 3D modeling software to make glossy pictures of make believe buildings on sites never even visited by the students. You say yourself that you have never built any of your own designs, therefore it is not expected that you would understand that. Your comments reek of professional jealousy.
To Wojciech Lesnikowski - it is not about building, it has never been about making builders. It is about making students responsible for their designs by forcing them to understand every single aspect of what they create. While your teaching style has its place, Studio 804 is far more valuable, as far as architecture education is concerned, than using 3D modeling software to make glossy pictures of make believe buildings on sites never even visited by the students. You say yourself that you have never built any of your own designs, therefore it is not expected that you would understand that. Your comments reek of professional jealousy.
Frankly, I do not understand Dan Rockhill's frustrations with current architectural education. Apparently he expects architects to build their own creations. In my career I designed several housing estates in Poland and France, designed several skyscrapers, airports, hospitals and office buildings in this country. I was a principal architect in several large corporate offices and dealt with prefabricated mass housing in Europe. And no point anybody asked me to build my own designs. How could I build a skyscraper? I never heard of design/build concept other than prefabrication of habitat. And it was practiced at massive scale in Europe. The idea of design built as proposed by Dan Rockhill has been born out of small scale, builders trade and has very little to do with true architectural activities or education. Correct architectural education requires by far more than just build yourself approach. Dan Rockhill's approach represents only a miniscule fraction of todays architectural practice relaying more and more very on space age technology and research.
Frankly, I do not understand Dan Rockhill's frustrations with current architectural education. Apparently he expects architects to build their own creations. In my career I designed several housing estates in Poland and France, designed several skyscrapers, airports, hospitals and office buildings in this country. I was a principal architect in several large corporate offices and dealt with prefabricated mass housing in Europe. And no point anybody asked me to build my own designs. How could I build a skyscraper? I never heard of design/build concept other than prefabrication of habitat. And it was practiced at massive scale in Europe. The idea of design built as proposed by Dan Rockhill has been born out of small scale, builders trade and has very little to do with true architectural activities or education. Correct architectural education requires by far more than just build yourself approach. Dan Rockhill's approach represents only a miniscule fraction of todays architectural practice relaying more and more very on space age technology and research.
The first lesson of real estate is "Location Location Location" This lesson should have been taught to the students who built a $350,000 house in a neighborhood where you would be lucky to get $80,000 for a home and where people get mugged walking to work. I commend the students for building a green home, but that project would have been better suited to a different neighborhood.
The first lesson of real estate is "Location Location Location" This lesson should have been taught to the students who built a $350,000 house in a neighborhood where you would be lucky to get $80,000 for a home and where people get mugged walking to work. I commend the students for building a green home, but that project would have been better suited to a different neighborhood.
i must say i think what you are doing and did for greenburg was a wonderful thing and i do alot of contracting and i have new and innovative idea's that are gear for the green and recycle area of building.so it would be nice if i could get the chance to maybe talk with the director or the teacher's of this program to talk about building a green community in the lawrence or kansas city ks area so i hope to hear back from anyone that may be interested,thank you and have a good day.
Sierra M. Stephenson
Stephenson Contracting Inc
i must say i think what you are doing and did for greenburg was a wonderful thing and i do alot of contracting and i have new and innovative idea's that are gear for the green and recycle area of building.so it would be nice if i could get the chance to maybe talk with the director or the teacher's of this program to talk about building a green community in the lawrence or kansas city ks area so i hope to hear back from anyone that may be interested,thank you and have a good day. Sierra M. Stephenson Stephenson Contracting Inc
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