Bloch Executive Hall

Dr. Teng-Kee Tan, then dean of the Bloch School of Management, expressed an idea in the early stages of design that shaped the team’s process and the final design: The path of innovation is never a straight line. The design process, too, was not a straight line. It was iterative and interactive, involving UMKC, BNIM, MRY, JE Dunn and the larger team of collaborators. The design of the new building itself became an entrepreneurial and innovative exercise, where the collaborative, interdisciplinary teaching and learning taking place within the spaces were a continuum of the design process. It was clearly articulated during the vision process for Bloch Hall that the new building would be a good steward of human health, nature and the economic resources of the university, achieving a balance among these triple-bottom-line considerations. Collaboration, as a key element of the design process, created an open dialogue among all team members that shepherded these and other significant goals through design iterations, rigorous testing and analysis, negotiations and, finally, to successful execution. The Bloch Executive Hall was completed from design through construction on a fast-track schedule within a 24-month period.