AIA Kansas City: The American Institute of Architects

What is the future of work, workers and workplaces? David Lathrop, Director of Research and Strategy for Steelcase, Inc., will be giving an enlightening presentation on how design of workplace can affect productivity.

As an expert on future trends in the office, Dave has been a featured speaker at a number of national conferences sponsored by groups such as the AIA, IFMA, the Conference Board, the American Management Association, AECRE, the International Interior Design Association and the International Society of Facility Executives. He has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Design Management Journal, and other publications.

Steelcase Inc., the world’s preeminent designer of products and services that help create great experiences, wherever work happens. The company is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich.

This event is SOLD OUT

Through the eyes and inspiration of the socially responsible Designtex Studio, to the careful hands of the Afghani weavers, a meaningful collection of one-of-a-kind rugs is brought to life. In collaboration with Arzu Studio Hope this luxurious collection of rugs is made up of six modern rugs designs, using wool bred from sheep in Afghanistan and natural dyes derived from local plants and fruits. Kimberle Frost, Vice President of Design for Designtex, will be speaking about their collaboration with this amazing organization.

Kimberle Frost serves as the Vice President of Design at Designtex, a place where she has served as a consultant for the past 11 years. With a true love for color and an acute sense of trends for both fashion and home, Kimberle consistently creates collections with the performance, price and aesthetic characteristics that appeal to designers and customers. She most recently served as Co-Creative Leader where she created many successful product launches for Designtex, including the award winning Kimono and Alchemy collections and most recently the Common Threads collection.

Designtex is a design and product development firm that celebrates inquiry and collaboration. A Steelcase (NYSE:scs) company, the Designtex family of products includes: Designtex (textiles, walls, panel fabrics, drapery, cubicles and digital printed surface imaging), Fusion (architectural panels) and loophouse (hand-made rugs). Designtex maintains showrooms, offices and sales locations in 110 global locations. For more information call 800-221-1540 or visit http://www.designtex.com.

Please register at http://www.kcdesignweek.org/contact/registration/

The UMKC Urban Planning + Design Students will be hosting an event at Grinders West next Wednesday February 3rd from 7 to 10 p.m.

A portion of the sales raised will go to the students for their trip to New Orleans for a National Planning Conference. Everyone is invited to come eat and celebrate design week. Grinders West is located at 415 E. 18th St, Kansas City, Mo.

For questions please contact Amanda DeBrot at 816.809.4414 or
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). We hope to see you there!

HOW WILL WE GROW?
An adaptive land-use scenario for Greater Kansas City

Learn how choices we make today will impact our future at public meetings on Feb. 3, 4 or 11

Frank Lenk, the Mid-America Regional Council’s research services director, is working with a Technical Forecast Committee on a future land-use forecast to support the new long-range transportation plan for the Kansas City area, Transportation Outlook 2040.

Over the next 30 years, the region can expect to add 500,000 people and 300,000 jobs, and the future land-use scenarios under consideration show alternate ways of accommodating overall growth. Under a baseline scenario — where past trends continue into the future — nearly all the region’s growth over the next 30 years occurs on previously undeveloped land.

But through focused development, we can grow smarter. The adaptive scenario assumes that 40 percent of population and job growth between now and 2040 will be concentrated in activity centers and along key corridors in existing areas, older suburbs and urban places. This would lead to major differences in infrastructure costs, amount of land used, roadway congestion and transit ridership levels.

How much of the adaptive growth scenario do you think the region can achieve? What policies must we use to get there?