Established in 1992, the Kansas City Design Center (KCDC) is a 501c3 not-for-profit collaboration among civic leaders, professional designers, and the architecture and planning programs at the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and the University of Missouri - Kansas City.

Our mission is to provide education, research, and leadership to strengthen the public realm.

Our goals are to provide an independent forum for critical dialogues about issues affecting the public realm, to build an informed constituency for good urban design, and to improve the quality of decision-making about the future of Kansas City’s built environment.