Written by: Anniston Upton, Corbin Spalding, Cadence Byrd and Yoseph Negash. KC Design Interns from ProX Kauffman Center High School Program

This summer, us interns at KCDC decided to build a pop-up park to bring public awareness to the positive possibilities of our underutilized public parks throughout Kansas City. Our catalyst to bring awareness was the increased street traffic from across the globe coming for the FIFA World Cup. Therefore, we chose our opening day to be during the first match held in Kansas City. 

Opening Day

Thanks to the Argentina vs Algeria Match, we had a high level of foot traffic throughout the park. The games we had set up prior to the start of our event gained immense popularity and activity throughout the day. Our park social event even attracted a popular argentinian music film crew. Additionally, the food truck we brought in drew in  people during lunch hours.

Bike Cart

We brought our bike cart which contains cornhole, ladder toss, soccer goals, a soccer ball, and tic-tac-toe boards. We used that to set up yard games for citizens and visitors to enjoy. This gave families and fans an opportunity to stay active, have fun and make connections with other people!

Park Social

Our Visitors interacted with our event in many different ways:

• Algerian and Argentinian fans as well as people from our local community consistently participated in soccer games in our mini field. 

• On our Information table we also had a paper where visitors could write down their hometowns. 

• Furthermore, we saw heightened traffic during the lunch hours where local food trucks like Cafe Ca Phe and Taco Cacao attracted locals to come to our park during their lunch break.

• Expanding the demographic: Accidently, we left our chalk bucket on the floor, to our advantage however, families with toddlers and smaller children were able to fit into our park social drawing coloring and drawing art on the park ground.

Days 2-4

After a successful opening day, we noticed that the amount of foot traffic flowing through our park started to decrease due to there being no World Cup game being hosted inside of the city. On the third day, we collaborated with the city's art in the loop program adding in more food trucks and live music performances to our park social. Usually only families and smaller groups would interact with our games, however, we did notice increased amounts of people during the lunch hour due to the food trucks. 

On the fourth day we noticed that although our specific park games saw the least amount of traffic compared to other days, the Oppenstein park itself held above average foot traffic and socializing. People from work would eat their lunch in the park, have conversations or simply get coffee from our coffee stand. We saw this as a major success due to it revealing that the community itself was interacting with the park as a whole, not just our pop up. 

Throughout the social, we ran into issues with our design each day based on weather conditions. When it was windy our goals would have to be staked in mulch rather than free on the field, and when it was rainy we’d have to cover all the games as well as the bike resulting in us post-poning our social. However, despite these inconveniences, we adapted and refined our layout accordingly.

After Final Reviews, our focus shifted toward preparing and assembling our final exhibit installation at the Kansas City Design Center. As the semester comes to a close, the exhibit became an opportunity not only to present our work, but also to communicate the larger vision behind the Greenline and the collective effort that shaped it throughout the semester. Much of our time was spent translating drawings, diagrams, renderings, and research into a physical experience that could clearly tell the story of each segment while still feeling connected as one unified project.

One of the biggest challenges during the setup process was balancing clarity with density of information. Because the Greenline addresses issues ranging from ecology and transportation to housing, connectivity, and public space, we had to think carefully about how people would move through the exhibit and understand the progression of ideas. This led to conversations about hierarchy, pacing, and how graphics could work together to create moments of focus without overwhelming viewers. We experimented with placement, spacing, and sequencing in order to create a more immersive and readable experience.

As a studio, we also spent time refining the physical atmosphere of the exhibit itself. Beyond simply pinning work on walls, we considered how lighting, models, materiality, and presentation techniques could reinforce the identity of the Greenline. Seeing all of the segments assembled together highlighted the continuity of the project and revealed how individual interventions contribute to a larger network across Kansas City. The exhibit began to function less as a collection of separate proposals and more as a shared vision for connectivity, ecology, and public life within the city.

The setup process also became a moment of reflection on the semester as a whole. Many of the ideas that began as diagrams, sketches, and conversations earlier in the term are now represented through final drawings and spatial proposals. Walking through the exhibit made it possible to see how research, community feedback, and iterative design decisions evolved into more resolved interventions. It also emphasized the collaborative nature of the studio, where each team contributed a unique perspective while still working toward a common framework.

Written by Bailey Stretton, Fourth Year Interior Architecture Student

This week wraps up our studio’s work on the Greenline. Over the course of the semester, four groups within our studio have iterated upon their assigned segments of the Greenline trail. Across the segments, design goals included incorporating green infrastructure, creating spaces for children and families, livability, safety, celebrating neighborhoods, and many more. 

This week we finalized our designs and presented them at Final Reviews to reviewers Vince Bryant, Erik Wullschleger, Brent Sells, Steve Rhoades, Steve McDowell, Mark Horne, and Jared Campbell on Wednesday. Each segment team has been fully diving into the character of the Greenline in each individual segment and understanding the plausibility of the implementation of the trail. After a semester of learning the ins and outs of Kansas City, meeting with community members, and exploring various ideas, we shared our final insights with excitement for the future of the Greenline. During reviews, it was highlighted that our community is eager for the Greenline to be finalized and has shown immense excitement in this process. 

We look forward to hearing from the community one last time during our exhibit opening and we are excited to see the work that continues to be done on the Greenline!

Written by Morgan Bratt, Fourth Year Interior Architecture Student