Building on our visit to the Dunbar neighborhood last week, our task was to accumulate research for a topic relating back to community resilience and compile our findings into a booklet. The goal was to show off how climate action planning, environmental health, critical infrastructure, and social resilience can strengthen and develop community resilience on a national, local, and neighborhood level.

This week, we met at Central Christian Church to speak with Jay Jones from More2 about resilience hubs. More2 is an Environmental Action Agency, which helps to produce resilience hubs and action centers here in Kansas City, such as Central Christian Church. During our visit we talked about environmental inequities and opportunities within KCMO.

Graphic by Josh Gaddy

Our groups came together and presented our research from the first two weeks of studio. Alongside our research paper, we were tasked with making four personas for the users of our projects. These personas represent the neighborhood residents, allowing us to zero in on user needs and pain points to create design decisions to fill the needs of the community! The key challenges we identified include addressing extreme weather and drought, strengthening connections between the community and social programs, improving access to emergency services, and building the infrastructure needed for the community to thrive independently. These focus areas will serve as the foundation for exploring opportunities to enhance resilience and strengthen the Dunbar neighborhood.

We’re thrilled to kick off the Fall 2025 semester here at the Kansas City Design Center! Our studio is gearing up for an exciting and impactful few months of design work, with 7 architecture students and 11 industrial design students coming together to shape meaningful projects.  

This semester, both our architecture and industrial design studios are diving into a crucial new endeavor: Community Resilience. On the architecture side, we’ll be working on the design of Community Resilience Hubs (CRHs), which are unique buildings that combine a community center with a shelter for climate-related emergencies. These CRHs are meant to be the first of many, creating a network of hubs across the urban core of Kansas City. During climate-related disasters, these hubs will be neighborhood-based epicenters that provide power, water, shelter, connectivity, health services, and food. During times of extreme heat or cold, they’ll serve as climate relief centers offering cooling/warming stations, water, and food. And when the weather is “normal,” they’ll be lively spaces for events, community services, and resources that support social, emotional, and physical well-being. 

 Meanwhile, our industrial design studio will focus on Community Resilience Infrastructure- a system of tools, objects, and spatial interventions to support neighborhood-level preparedness and recovery. Together, our two studios are fostering an interdisciplinary environment where architecture and industrial design students collaborate toward a shared project goal. 

We’ll be working closely with the Heart of the City Neighborhood Association, Care on the Boulevard, and other community partners in Kansas City. We’ll be designing deployable products, material systems, public furnishings, and information devices that not only meet everyday needs, but also help communities during disaster response. 

During our first week, we visited our project site in the Dunbar community and attended a Q&A session with residents Kathryn Persley and Damon Patterson. We were joined by another K-State Studio that is also studying Dunbar led by Gabrielle Coleman. This visit gave us the chance to learn directly from community members about the history of the neighborhood and the residents' lived experiences. We ended the day exploring nearby landmarks and places surrounding the site! 

We hope you’ll follow along as we explore the possibilities for enhancing community resilience in Kansas City! We’ll be sharing weekly updates here on the blog, and you can also keep up with us on Instagram @kcdesigncenter. We’re so excited to see where this semester takes us and to work toward making a meaningful impact on our community! 

We are excited to announce the opening reception of our newest exhibit, "The Future Central Avenue Bridge," now on display at the KCK Main Library. This showcase highlights the work of the Spring 2025 design studio and features five concepts for the reimagining of the Central Avenue Bridge.

Exhibition Details

Duration: May 12 - June 13, 2025
Location: KCK Library: Main Branch - 625 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, KS 66101

The Future Central Avenue Bridge: A Vision for Connection

The Future Central Avenue Bridge exhibition invites visitors to explore how design can reimagine one of Kansas City’s vital infrastructural links. The exhibition examines how a bridge can serve not just as a crossing, but as a meaningful civic space, presenting five distinct design concepts developed through a semester-long studio.

Through detailed scale models, in-process drawings, and visual timelines, visitors can trace the evolution of ideas from initial concepts to refined proposals. Each design offers a unique response to the complex technical, spatial, and cultural challenges of the Central Avenue Bridge, which connects Kansas City, Kansas and the West Bottoms. This work builds on research, site analysis, and community dialogue—an exploration shaped by both the physical conditions of the site and the aspirations of the communities it serves. 

We invite community members to engage with these visions, consider their possibilities, and reflect on how thoughtful design might shape the shared future of Central Avenue.

The exhibition remains on view through June 13th—don't miss this opportunity to explore potential futures for the Central Avenue Bridge.