May 4, 2007, a tornado ripped across Kiowa County, Kansas, leveling
ninety-five percent of the town of Greensburg and leaving the rest of
the town severely damaged. Shortly after the tornado, a 12-week process
of meetings and discussions by teams of local, state, and federal
officials, business owners, civic groups, and hundreds of citizens
resulted in “Long-Term Community Recovery Plan: Greensburg + Kiowa
County, Kansas ” (LTCRP), which expresses the Greensburg/Kiowa County
community’s vision for recovery. In the LTCRP, the inhabitants of
Greensburg expressed a strong will to strategize the reconstruction of
a new, sustainable rural town.
In October 2007, KSU College of Architecture, Planning and Design
professors coordinated fourth year landscape architecture and fifth
year architecture students to begin addressing the design needs of
Greensburg. The aim was for students to create sustainable design
conceptualizations for projects specifically listed in the LTCRP.
Students were to communicate the following to the general public: some
basic sustainable design practices, and, how these practices could
manifest in a design concept for Greensburg. The student projects
would then serve as a catalyst for conversation as the town considers
their reconstruction efforts.
From the beginning, architecture and landscape architecture students
were instructed to work together on design proposals that encompassed
aspects of ecological sensitivity, resource efficiency and resident
health and well-being. It was soon acknowledged that, for the
reconstruction of a small town, sustainability has broader implications
than the generally accepted definition of reduced environmental impact,
conscientious resource use, and the preservation of human well-being.
Ensuring the viability of the community - its economy, institutions,
and infrastructure - was of vital importance. Communicating these
needs, potential design solutions and design logic to the general
public was an architecture-landscape architecture student effort. In
December 2007, the design concepts were given to the citizens of
Greensburg. A public gallery exhibited the work, digital files of all
student project images and text were placed on the internet, and paper
copies of all work were given to the City.
