The firms of GastingerWalker, based in Kansas City, Missouri, and Gensler Chicago will provide the architectural and design services for Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall, the new home for the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University.
The architectural team was selected following interviews of a short list of firms provided by the State Building Advisory Commission. The selection committee consisted of staff from Wichita State University and the WSU Foundation, as well as the Office of Facilities and Property Management and the Kansas Board of Regents.
Researchers from the team will be on campus Monday through Wednesday, Oct. 28-30, to learn more about the university, its campus, students and faculty. A poster session will be set up on those days in the Rhatigan Student Center and Clinton Hall to get feedback from students, faculty and staff about the types of spaces and activities they would like to see in the new building.
The firm and its team have extensive experience within the educational sphere and business buildings in particular. While based in Kansas City and Chicago, the team lead will reside in Wichita three-to-four days a week during the construction process.
The design process has started and is scheduled to be completed by early summer 2020, in time to coincide with the sale of bonds and the beginning of construction. The building is anticipated to be open for classes in the spring semester of 2022.
GastingerWalker and Gensler Chicago were members of the architectural team that designed the new business school building at the University of Kansas.
Gensler Chicago is part of Gensler, an architecture, design and planning firm with offices in 48 cities worldwide.
The mission of Wichita State University is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good. Wichita State is a doctoral research university enrolling nearly 15,000 students and offering 59 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in seven undergraduate colleges. The Graduate School offers 45 master's and 12 doctoral degrees that offer study in more than 100 areas. Wichita State's Innovation Campus is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology. For more information, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wichitastate and Facebook at www.facebook.com/wichita.state.