Studio 804: KU Center of Design Research [opening]

After some radio silence on the studio804 blog website, we decided to do some hunting and found that the KU Center for Design research is either completed or very near completion. take a look at some photos below as well as the article covering the open house:

Crimson, Blue and Green All Over

south entrance of the new KU center of design research [photo by richard gwin]

the entrance to the center of design research on open house day [photo by richard gwin]

the interior 'living wall' made up of hundreds of fern plants [photo by nick krug]

a student monitoring the building's energy consumption [photo by nick krug]

the project set its sights on achieving Passivhaus certification, a very stringent performance based building standard imported from germany. it wasn't clear on whether the facility achieved that goal yet, but past projects foreshadow a similar result. along with a green roof, rooftop solar PVs and an interior green wall [hmm...deja vu] the new center will rely on collected rainwater to supply all the toilets in the building, reducing the demand on the lawrence, ks water supply.

the primary goal of the new building is to :

"... transform the space into a showcase of sustainable design and green technology, and provide a location for meetings, conferences and classes."

if anyone has their own images, please send us a link. we'd love to see more about this ambitious project!