KU architecture students open LEED Platinum house in Lawrence

A one-story house in Brook Creek gave Lawrence residents a concrete look at how high-performance design can lower utility costs. Built by University of Kansas architecture students on a former brownfield site, the home was designed to meet LEED Platinum standards and packed with features meant to reduce energy use and water demand.

Studio 804 held a public open house from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 1144 E. 12th St. in Lawrence. KU asked visitors to use Brook Creek Park for additional parking and to avoid parking on grass or on both sides of the street. The project was developed over nine months by 19 students in KU’s Master of Architecture program, giving them a chance to see a building through from design to completion.

The program is a yearlong, comprehensive educational opportunity for graduate students entering their final year, and KU says students work on construction documents, specifications, building code issues, engineering consultants and material suppliers. That hands-on model is what has kept Studio 804 running for more than 30 years under KU professor Dan Rockhill. “This stuff works. I’m proud to be able to demonstrate it,” Rockhill said.

The house itself is a practical case study in what local builders could copy on infill lots. It is a one-story, two-bedroom home with an accessory dwelling unit in the back. KU said it includes 16 solar panels, high-efficiency appliances, a triple-glazed curtain wall system, a ventilated zinc rainscreen, polished concrete floors and glue-laminated timber portal frames. The concrete floors are designed to store heat during the day and release it later, a passive-solar approach that can help moderate indoor temperatures and reduce heating demand.

Material reuse was another major theme. The structure incorporates reused structural wood salvaged from a mid-century building, along with columns taken from a Los Angeles house demolished in the 1970s. The Journal-World also reported super-insulated walls and a water system that reduces pressure to save water. Studio 804 has completed 18 consecutive LEED Platinum-certified homes, a track record that shows this is more than a one-off class project.

For Lawrence and Douglas County, the house offered a clear lesson: sustainability can be built into small-scale housing on underused land, not just talked about in planning meetings. In Brook Creek, a city-recognized neighborhood planning area, the project stood as a working example of how university training, energy savings and infill development can meet in the same house.