See inside the newly renovated Gray Design Building at the University of Kentucky

A more than century-old building on the University of Kentucky campus has been given new life with a focus on collaboration among students in the College of Design.

Renovations to the Gray Design Building, originally known as the Reynolds Building, were completed during the spring semester after a $5.25 million donation from Gray Inc., a construction and engineering company owned by the Gray family of Lexington .

Renovations were completed earlier this year, with students and faculty moving into the building over the past few months. The fall semester, which begins Aug. 26, will be the first full semester that the renovated building is occupied and in use.

Home to programs within the College of Design, this building marks the first time all programs have shared a single building. Joe Brewer, director of technology and facilities for the College of Design, said this will allow people from different programs — from freshmen to masters to faculty — to interact in one space.

“We know from a lot of research that the best way to make innovation happen is to put a bunch of smart, curious people together, and the more diverse those people are — not just ethnically diverse , but diverse from a sociological point of view. , diverse interests and backgrounds – the more innovation happens,” said Brewer.

The building has pieces of its history throughout, with original hardwood floors and columns. With high warehouse ceilings, the building is light and open with offices and student workspaces.

College of Design students will have assigned offices in the building, with 550 workstations currently available, Brewer said. Similar to an open office concept, desks are arranged in large open rooms, meaning students from across the college can easily collaborate.

College of Design Dean Ned Crankshaw said there is enthusiasm among students and faculty to have space to collaborate and work in one location.

“We’ve always had great faculty here and great programs, but what the new building brings is the ability to really see what all the design programs and students are working on and have the ability to collaborate with other students,” he said.

All design programs in one building

The Gray Design Building now houses the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture and Environment’s Architecture, Historic Preservation, Interior Design and Product Design, and Landscape Architecture programs.

Students in each program will have access to makerspaces in the building, including a wood workshop, 3D printer and 3D knitting machine. The makerspaces were designed close to the students’ work areas for “an easy interaction between those two things,” Crankshaw said. There are also large spaces and more outdoor spaces where students will be able to build large-scale projects with ease.

“Our manufacturing is not just about making models and small things,” he said. “It’s from the smallest scale, to really big, large-scale projects.”

Technology in classrooms allows students to be able to easily share their digital work for feedback or share their work from multiple locations. Brewer said, to his knowledge, the UK was one of the first design schools to use this type of technology, called T1V.

The building also serves as a link between UK and downtown Lexington. Located just off Broadway, the building overlooks downtown from the classrooms.

In part, that part of the campus was disconnected from downtown when Broadway was realigned in the mid-1970s, Brewer said. The street was lowered to help with traffic near the railroad crossing, eliminating direct access to the campus from Broadway.

History of the gray design building

Last year, at the time of the donation, UK President Eli Capilouto called the building “historic but terribly stressed”.

Built in 1917 as a tobacco warehouse, it was purchased by Britain for use as a classroom building in the 1960s. It housed the art department for several years, but was vacated more than a decade ago and used as a surplus storage location as the building needed major renovations.

Construction was briefly halted last year when human bones were found on the site. The site was a city cemetery in the 1800s, Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn told the Herald-Leader. Over time, buildings have been built on top of the cemetery, and construction last year led to the discovery of the bones.

In accordance with state law, UK contacted the coroner’s office, which conducted an investigation before construction was allowed to resume.