By Jeff Murphy,
July 2, 2018
WARRENSBURG, MO – Gould Evans, a nationally recognized design and planning firm in
Kansas City that has worked on a variety of projects for the University of Central
Missouri, was honored this month as a recipient of two Chicago Athenaeum 2018 American
Architecture Awards. One of those awards was for Gould Evans’ work on the Missouri
Innovation Campus (MIC) building in Lee’s Summit.
Gould Evans also received an American Architecture Award for the Salt River Pima Maricopa
Indian Community Justice Center, which is a tribal court and practitioners’ building
in the nearly native Sonoran Desert, near Phoenix. This project and the MIC both earned
Gould Evans recognition by the European Centre of Architecture Art Design and Urban
Studies.
“We’re honored to receive two American Architecture Awards this year,” said Tony Rohr,
national managing principal of Gould Evans. “Both projects that are being recognized
are emblematic of how we design to create meaningful outcomes for our clients: responding
to their specific challenge, and the cultural and physical context they are operating
in.”
The Missouri Innovation Campus opened in August 2017, and was made possible by a trailblazing
agreement that was entered into between the governing boards of the Lee’s Summit R-7
School District, which owns the facility, and UCM, which leases 60 percent of the
space. The MIC houses an accelerated degree program that is becoming a national model,
and provides a unique setting where high school students and college students share
space in the same building. It is the site for R-7’s Summit Technology Academy, which
is attended by high school students in districts throughout the metropolitan area,
and UCM-Lee’s Summit, which serves as the university’s main hub for adult learning
opportunities outside its Warrensburg campus.
Gould Evans designed the facility to support the evolution of traditional education
models and better prepare graduates for the workplace environment. Within its walls,
distinctions among spaces for lecture, lab meeting, work and community are blurred.
This enables students to choose the environment that fits their learning style while
they develop at their own pace competencies in different skills areas.
In recent years, Gould Evans has provided design assistance for some of the largest
projects in UCM’s history. Such projects have included The Crossing – South at Holden,
the university’s first retail-student housing project, and the Student Recreation
and Wellness Center, a facility which serves academic needs in areas such as nutrition
and kinesiology and myriad of student recreation opportunities.
The American Architecture Awards are a way to honor significant buildings, landscapes
and planning projects designed and/or built in the United States and abroad by the
most important American architects, landscape architects, and urban planners practicing
nationally and internationally. It also honors international architects and designers
practicing in the U.S.
View a full list of winning projects.
