Design Camp
Design Camp in Lawrence
Dates:
May 31- June 6, 2026
Location:
KU's Lawrence Campus
Design Camp in Lawrence
Join us for KU Design Camp and enjoy a valuable educational experience while working on projects that enhance your creative portfolio. KU Design Camp is a pre-college summer program offered to high school students who are entering their sophomore, junior, or senior year and are interested in Architecture or Design. Students attend week-long morning and afternoon workshops taught by KU School of Architecture & Design faculty and get to experience residential campus life.
Campers rank their morning and afternoon workshop preferences during registration. Please note that the availability of workshops is subject to enrollment numbers. While we do the best we can to match campers with their top choices, they may not receive their first choice in workshops.
Registration Fees
$1,000 — This fee includes housing in a University of Kansas residence hall, meals, studio fees, project materials, and evening activities. $150 deposit due at time of registration.
Fee waivers are available for a select number of students with financial need. The fee waiver application will open in March. The application consists of two short answer questions pertaining to why students are interested in attending Design Camp and asking students to describe their extracurricular involvement. Priority consideration will go to students with demonstrated financial need and/or those from select school districts in the Kansas City and St. Louis metro areas.
Transportation
Optional transportation to and from Lawrence is provided for fee waiver recipients coming from Kansas City. Buses are used throughout the week to transport campers to and from workshops, mealtimes, and evening activities.
Past Workshop Topics
Instructor: Ann Alcasabas
In this class, campers will explore how their unique collection of conscious and unconscious preferences and philosophies guide their creative choices. Campers will translate unique aspects of their creative voice into a personal brand identity to include a monogram, pin back buttons, and a cover letter that can assist in their future portfolio needs. Campers will bring their creative voice into higher and higher resolution and learn to trust and enjoy the process.
Instructor: Betsy Barnhart
This course is for designers who love streetwear and fashion, and who want to design their own sneakers. Campers will learn how to design footwear like the pros, from identifying trends, creating mood boards, brainstorming ideas, iterative sketching, applying performance attributes, to styling. Campers will learn terms of the trade, materials used, and basic principles of athletic shoe-making. By the end of the workshop, campers will design their own fashion-driven athletic sneaker based off of their own trend forecasting and research. Campers will be able to rapidly sketch multiple designs, create marker renderings to show color options and materials, understand and apply the basics of creating photo realistic digital drawings, select materials, and visualize their own concepts. Campers create a final presentation and a portfolio of their unique design that is a fantastic addition to any fine art or industrial design college portfolio application
Instructor: Mohammad Dastmalchi
This workshop will introduce campers to digital prototyping through a design project, where students are asked to design an on-campus bus shelter. Campers will learn about the basic principles of design thinking, design elements and principles, and conceptualization of ideas. Furthermore, campers will develop 3D spatial thinking and will use Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology to assist them. Through hands-on activities, students will develop an understanding of how technology can provide insights into how people with disabilities experience the world, and how this can inform their designs. And finally, students get to present their work using VR.
Instructor: Jay Holley
Architecture is more than just buildings—it’s about the stories we tell through space, form, and experience. In this workshop, campers will explore architectural storytelling by creating a print ’zine (a small, self-published work) that presents a design problem and solution through a combination of physical drawings and A.I.-generated imagery. Campers will begin by identifying a design challenge and sketching initial ideas by hand. They will then experiment with A.I.-generated visuals to enhance their concepts, blending traditional and emerging technologies to create compelling narratives. The final product will be a ’zine that showcases their unique design solutions in a visually engaging format.
Instructor: Kent Smith
This workshop focuses on "Urban Sketch" and will take students on a series of sketchbook adventures around campus focused on observational, energetic, drawing of architectural spaces. Develop drawing and composition skills along with lessons in mark-making, sighting, perspective systems and more. Learn how to "hack" your sketchbook and bring pages to life with various media explorations and creative challenges.
Instructor: Titus Smith
Campers will get ideas out of their head and onto the screen in this workshop, led by KU's new Interaction Design program faculty. Whether they are curious about a career in UI/UX Design or just want to see if that app idea they've had could actually make the world a better place, this workshop is the way to learn more. Basic design and human computer interaction principles to conceptualize, wireframe, design, and prototype a mobile app will be explored — all in one week!
Design Camp in KC
Dates:
July 6-10, 2026
Location:
KU's Edwards Campus in Overland Park
Design Camp in KC
The KU School of Architecture & Design offers a week-long day camp opportunity for high school students in and around the Kansas City metro area. Students select one morning workshop led by members of KU faculty. Lunch is provided each day and guests are invited for an open house at the end of the week to see what their campers created.
Registration Fees: $50
This fee includes workshop supplies and lunch each day. Fee is due at the time of registration.
Fee waivers are available for students with financial need. Students may request a fee waiver in the registration form.
Transportation
KU partnered with Hickman-Mills and Kansas City Kansas Public Schools in 2025 to provide daily transportation for students from those districts. We intend to continue providing transportation in future years.
Past Workshop Topics
Kent Smith, Assistant Teaching Professor
Bring your characters and drawings to life in this concept art workshop. Explore a variety of methods for creating unique characters and creatures full of life and ready for adventures in your illustrations and animations.
Sam Yates Meier, Lecturer
In this hands-on workshop, you'll create your brand system. You'll dive into the graphic design world and craft your logo, pick colors that speak to you, and choose fonts that match your style.
Thom Allen, Assistant Professor of Practice
Using Minecraft as an interactive platform, students will experience a creative and collaborative environment where they can design and build a virtual city.