Students work to finish innovative house
Building features moveable walls, newspaper insulation
Architecture students are wrapping up construction on a state of the art house in Kansas City, Kan.
By Nathan Gill
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
Architecture students at the University of Kansas are hammering and drilling quickly to finish their custom-built house, complete with moveable walls and pulverized newspaper insulation, before graduation.
A custom-built home receives the finishing touches as Studio 804 Inc., a nonprofit organization consisting of graduate architecture students at the University, works to complete the structure by gradiation.
The project, located near central Kansas City, Kan., is the latest creation of Studio 804 Inc., an independent, nonprofit organization consisting of a graduate class within the School of Architecture and Urban Design.
Zack Cole, Joplin, Mo., graduate student, said the house was designed and built in Lawrence. He said the prefabricated house, constructed in seven square modules, was then transported to its final location near the KU Medical Center in Rosedale, a historic, urban neighborhood undergoing revitalization.
Cole said the 1,500 square-foot structure could have one to three bedrooms, depending on how owners positioned its large, rolling cabinets, which serve as room dividers and storage devices. The house’s cabinets, bamboo flooring, recycled paperstone countertops and plenty of skylights and windows are just some of its modern features.
“A lot of it has to do with saving space,” Cole said. “I’d like to see it as a definite add to the community.”
Wendy Wilson, director of the Rosedale Development Association, which seeks to revitalize and preserve the Rosedale community, said she thought most Rosedale residents approved of the odd, shoebox-shaped structure.
“I think the community is open to them and liking them,” she said of the house, the third structure the studio has brought to the area. “It’s not a cookie-cutter neighborhood where everything looks the same.”
But not everyone has been open to the studio’s novel homes, Cole said. Jeff Fendorf, vice president of operations and community development for El Centro, a Kansas City social organization that helped finance the project, said the studio had problems finding a place for last year’s house.
Fendorf said last year’s site, in Westheight, another historic neighborhood near Rosedale, had to be moved because of objections from the community and the Kansas State Historical Society. He said El Centro bought this year’s site directly from the Rosedale Development Association, which knew what it was getting into.
“We wanted to support the neighborhood it was going to go in,” Fendorf said.
There’s a pretty good demand for these things. People like the houses.
-Jeff Fendorf, vice president of operations and community development for El Centro
Cole said, “It’s kind of a risk, because it’s so different. Part of the success is having a buyer.”
Fendorf said El Centro was managing the sale of the house, and said they were looking for buyers. He said the final price for the house had not been set, but said it would be around $200,000 and that the profits would be split between the studio and El Centro.
“There’s a pretty good demand for these things,” Fendorf said. “People like the houses.”
Kansan staff writer Nathan Gill can be contacted at ngill@kansan.com.
— Edited by Katie Sullivan
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