BUSt! Boredom.

LOCATION: Central Transit Center Lexington, Kentucky

STATUS: Completed 2017

CLIENT: LFUCG Downtown Development Authority, Lextran, Lexpark

COLLABORATION: UK College of Design and Informal Office

In 2016, the LDDA’s “BUSt! Boredom” proposal to re-imagine the Transit Center was chosen as 1 of 50 winners from over 1,000 applicants to receive a grant from KaBoom! Play Everywhere Challenge. The Challenge was a collaboration between Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, Playworld, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

During Lexington’s Public Space Public Life Study performed by Gehl Institute in 2015, the Transit Center was identified as a “harsh and undignified experience that forces transit users to wait in a space with few amenities cut off from the rest of Downtown.” (Gehl, 2015) The goal of BUSt! Boredom is to encourage wonder, conversations, pride, and a sense of belonging for the almost 5,000 predominantly low income individuals who pass through this space every day to “inspire imagination and promote interaction among caregivers and children during their 10-15 minute wait.” (LDDA, 2016).

NOMI worked alongside two other design teams to develop prototypical and replicable concepts that allow children (and adults) in Lexington to “Play Everywhere”. Our two concepts, “Mega Maze” and “Mis-fits” are currently installed at Lexington’s central transit center on Vine Street.