The downtown Lexington Transit Center offers new interactive kid-friendly design thanks
to a recent Play Everywhere Challenge grant.
Lexington designers, including University of Kentucky College of Design students, the
Lexington Downtown Development Authority, LexTran and LexPark worked together to bring
play into everyday life.
Hannah O'Leary: The Lexington Downtown Development Authority works on economic development and
public space projects within downtown Lexington. The intention of the Play Everywhere Challenge
was to provide play for children who don't necessarily have that in their everyday life.
And the KaBoom Play Everywhere Challenge actually called out bus stops, laundromats, empty lots.
Places where children were in their everyday life. We know from the LexTran Ridership survey,
that people spend up to an hour sometimes getting to and from their locations in Lexington.
And we just wanted to make the 10- to 15-minute wait for those families a little bit safer,
and nicer, and fun. When we knew we were a good candidate to receive the Play Everywhere
Challenge grant, we reached out to several design teams to ask them to participate.
Jason Scroggin: Myself representing University of Kentucky, and a couple of other design
firms, Nomi Design here in Lexington, and Informal Office, also here in Lexington. And
each of us were to contribute a design proposal for the bus terminal. And they wanted it to
center on interactivity and play.
Hannah O'Leary: We have a strong relationship with the College of Design. We've gotten a
lot of interns through that program over time that have greatly benefitted our organization.
And we knew it was going to take a lot of creativity to come up with kid-friendly design
in the challenging parameters of that space. Up to 5000 people pass through that space every day.
Jason Scroggin: You have less than 20 feet wide to work with, and a lot of that is used
for circulation. Typically, in the course that I teach, we'll make large scale objects
for people to really interact with, jump on, go inside, climb on, etc. That's kind of where
we started with our design proposals, but we found out relatively quickly that that
wouldn't work because, besides the fact that these pieces wouldn't fit inside the space,
that they would be hazardous.
Hannah O'Leary: We had, you know, the risk management director from LexTran there, and
we had the facilities people who own the building from LexPark there, and talk to them about,
you know, the risks of children falling off of things with the concrete platform and what
could and could not happen with the walls and the ceiling of the space. But the benefit
of having the students there were they were really able to think outside the box and think
in a new way about the project. And coming and presenting a lot of really great ideas
that we weren't able to do within the time and scope of the grant, helped those key stakeholders
see the potential for the space down the road.
Jason Scroggin: For me, that's probably what made it unique, was just the interaction.
It wasn't like the students did the work and I would present it, you know, it was really
that students presented, and they would sit at the table having the conversation with
all of the constituents in the project. So, the way it's situated, there's the bus terminal
on one side of this 500-foot-long space, and on the other side, it's all parking garage.
And the glass block wall divides the two spaces. And, what's really nice about that wall, is
that it lets light into the parking garage, so it's actually fairly spectacular on the
inside of the parking garage. And on the outside, it's nice, but we also looked at that as an
opportunity to, you know, light something up.
Pooya Mohaghegh: In the beginning, we all pitched up ideas to decide which one is better.
And then one of the ideas that got picked up was the LED installation. And I was one
of the more experienced students with the installation of that type, so I kind of picked
up working on that and figuring out what we need, who need to talk to, and what we need to get.
Tricia Rowedder: I think the most challenging part of the project was getting all the different
components to work together. Because we knew what we wanted to do and what we were trying
to accomplish, but learning and tag-teaming different programs and different equipment
Pooya Mohaghegh: We ended up spending a lot of times, late at night, from maybe midnight
to three/four am, preparing the boards, soldering them, programming it, testing it. If you have
an idea on campus, there's someone who knows how to help you do it. So, we didn't know
a lot of the things, but we went to the different departments of engineering, and they did know
how to do it, so we got help from them. So collaboration was very, very important in this project.
Tricia Rowedder: My favorite part I think is the outcome. Actually getting to go down
onto the site and interact with the lights. Every time we go down, we see our stick figures
reflecting on the wall and it's a lot of fun, because it is a project for all ages. Whether
you're a little kid or a grown adult.
Tricia Rowedder: With this project and with other projects I've done, it really opens
up and shows you that architecture has so many different opportunities, and different
paths that you can go down. So, I think this project in general just helped me to learn
a lot about the different variations that are out there. And then, will help me decide
what kind of architect I want to be.