KU's Studio 804 is in good company

Architecture professors Dan Rockhill, third from left below, and Kent Spreckelmeyer, far right below, and the graduate students of Studio 804 were honored for their achievements by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA featured the team's design of the home at 216 Alabama St. in Lawrence on the cover of a new book honoring the community-based design labs at nine U.S. universities.

Studio 804, KU's design/build capstone studio in the master of architecture program, is in prestigious company in a new book on architecture from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The book, University-Community Design Partnerships: Innovations in Practice, reviews nine architectural programs that have been recognized as models of community-based design laboratories, including KU, Yale's Urban Design Workshop, Archeworks of Chicago, and Auburn University's Rural Studio.

But it is a home built by KU's Studio 804 that garners the most attention; it alone graces the cover of the book.

Since 1995 the studio, under the direction of Professor Dan Rockhill, has formed partnerships with the City of Lawrence and Tenants to Homeowners Inc. to provide innovative and affordable housing solutions for local families. Students in the studio finance, design and construct houses that incorporate a wide variety of recycled and experimental building materials. Students begin the design/build process in a fall-semester management course taught by Professor Kent Spreckelmeyer and complete the project by Commencement weekend.

The program has received awards from World Architecture, Residential Architect, The American Institute of Architects, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the American Institute of Steel Construction, and the Federal Home Loan Bank.

See Studio 804's work at www.studio804.com

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