Established in 1996, El Dorado is an integrated architecture, urban design, curatorial, education and fabrication practice located in Kansas City, Missouri and Portland, Oregon.

In the beginning, as equal parts art gallery, fabrication shop and design studio, we were known for fingerless gloves and raffish outbursts that helped jumpstart Kansas City’s emergent culture. Today, we work purposefully across scales, locations, and contexts, from city blocks to exhibitions, between critical ideas and our intangible, spiritual attachment to place. El Dorado’s two partners and 20 staff  — including 11 architects, 2 university professors, industrial designers and certified welders — chase big ideas with a common touch.

Design+Make is an Academic partnership between a Kansas State University capstone design studio and El Dorado. This studio explores conceptually driven, expertly crafted architecture at all scales of work, with all types of clients and in all locations. It is a research-based architectural enterprise where graduate students from diverse backgrounds develop their passion for innovative problem-solving, focused on community needs.

(above) YMCA’s Camp Wood commissioned this education station for North America’s most endangered landscape: the native Tallgrass Prairie. Requirements were: 1) it must survive annual prairie burns, and 2) the intervention must recede into the landscape. During the fall, the studio researched the complexities of the site, and in the spring, produced drawings, prototypes, pricing information, and the project itself. What began as a simple shade structure evolved into a flexible platform that connects campers to the expansive landscape.