KU Designbuild

The KU Designbuild Institute is one of the nation’s leaders in designbuild education, preparing graduates to enter architecture and design careers with an array of experiences few institutions can offer. KU Designbuild is comprised of two primary designbuild studio experiences: Studio 509, a collection of single-semester, third-year designbuild studios situated right at the heart of the five-year professional Master of Architecture degree program, and Studio 804, the internationally recognized, two-semester advanced designbuild studio that has been pioneering designbuild education at the University of Kansas since 1995.

Designbuild fundamentally changes the way students learn to practice architecture. Rather than stopping at drawings and specifications, students take responsibility for carrying ideas through the full arc of a project—from research, design, and material selection to permitting, coordination, fabrication, and construction. Working within the real constraints of budgets, schedules, sites, materials, building codes, and client needs, students experience firsthand how design decisions have consequences and how architecture is shaped through collaboration, iteration, and making. They learn not only how buildings go together, but how architects can bring people, materials, technologies, and ideas together to make things happen. And, using everything from hand tools to advanced digital fabrication and robotics, students learn to build.

Led by an award-winning faculty of designbuild educators, KU students continually rewrite what is possible for academic projects to accomplish. With a history rooted in curricular innovations stretching back nearly half a century, KU Designbuild has served as a model for programs around the world. KU students have created LEED Platinum and net-zero energy buildings, modular furniture systems, accessible community parks, mobile architecture, public amenities, exhibitions, and prototypes—demonstrating how designbuild can extend the reach of architecture beyond the conventional boundaries of practice and create meaningful work in the world.

Students interested in a designbuild education at the University of Kansas can enroll in the Master of Architecture program and/or pursue our Designbuild Graduate Certificate.