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K.C. Cool: 7 Striking Designs in Kansas City, Missouri
November 21, 2013
It's easy to overlook Kansas City, Missouri. Located squarely in the nation's center, it is better known for its barbecue and bebop than as an incubator for creative design and architecture. But the city's image is evolving. The opening in 2011 of the visually striking Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, desiged by Moshe Safdie, helped the city stake out a new reputation as a culturally vibrant metropolis, and a cohort of daringly inventive local architects are designing and renovating homes in visually striking ways. Today, we take a look at seven noteworthy Kansas City projects from Dwell's archives.
Architect Jamie Darnell had a simple plan for his family’s home in Kansas City, Missouri, but the result is anything but plain. The house in the evening, with the main living space and basement illuminated. "It gets pretty windy here," Jamie says. "I have nightmares about the roof coming off like the lid of a can." Photo by Chad Holder.
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Originally appeared in Affordable, SIP-Built Family Home in Kansas City
For more than a decade, El Dorado Inc., or “the Eldos” as the architecture firm’s members are known, has been at the heart of Kansas City’s metamorphosis. From an office in the Crossroads Arts District, a once-overlooked neighborhood just south of downtown, El Dorado has overseen a prolific number of projects, including 5 Delaware, a 13-unit building in the city's pedestrian-friendly River Market neighborhood. Photo by Daniel Hennessy.
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Originally appeared in Kansas City, MO
The bunkhouses at Camp Prairie Schooner outside Kansas City, Missouri, are geared to the 21st-century urban camper. Architect Douglas Stockman of El Dorado Inc. explains that his firm designed the structures for city-dwelling youngsters “with some of the comforts of being at home, plus technology as a tool for the activities associated with camp.” Photo by Mike Sinclair.
Originally appeared in Color Coded: 7 Vibrant Exteriors
In a leafy residential area a few miles from downtown Kansas City, Missouri, architect Christian Arnold saw opportunity where others saw trouble. He took a sloping, triangular lot and designed a new home for his growing family—an open tree house–like structure on stilts that hovers at the quirky edge of a conventional neighborhood. Photo by Mike Sinclair.
Courtesy of
Mike Sinclair
Working with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority and the city’s parks department, the architectural firm El Dorado Inc. designed and erected two bus shelters in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Photo by Mike Sinclair.
Courtesy of
Mike Sinclair
Originally appeared in Kansas City Bus Shelters
The Kansas City firm Kem Studio helped Ethan and Heidi Whitehill navigate the tricky process of modernizing a converted 1960s-era duplex on a street that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Make It Right, the New Orleans-based nonprofit founded by Brad Pitt, and the Kansas City architectural firm BNIM worked together to transform the vacant Bancroft Elementary School in the city’s Manheim Park neighborhood into low-income housing for families, veterans, senior citizens, and young people transitioning out of foster care.
Originally appeared in Kansas City Makes It Right
Architect Jamie Darnell had a simple plan for his family’s home in Kansas City, Missouri, but the result is anything but plain. The house in the evening, with the main living space and basement illuminated. "It gets pretty windy here," Jamie says. "I have nightmares about the roof coming off like the lid of a can." Photo by Chad Holder.
Photo by Chad Holder.
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