Project Data
- Name
- Stanley Herzog Foundation
- Location
- Smithville, MO
- Size
- 18,500 square feet
- Year Completed
- 2022
- Type
- Conference Center, Hospitality, Workplace, Non-Profit
- Collaborators
- Hoerr Schaudt (landscape), SK Design (civil), PKMR (mep), PMA (landscape), Lightworks (lighting)
- Contractor
- Crossland Construction
- Photography
- Jason O’Rear
The Stanley Herzog Foundation Headquarters rests at the crest of a hill on a narrow eight-acre site surrounded by prairie grasslands and cornfields. The building is comprised of three “stone barns” supporting the primary uses of the building: working, gathering, and exhibiting. Each stone barn is open-ended, framing views of the surrounding landscape.
The limestone for the building was quarried from post-rock country in central Kansas. As the top layer of the Greenhorn Limestone formation, the stone takes its name from early settlers who quarried and cut it into 4-by-4-inch fence posts that still dot the Central Kansas landscape.
The building houses its namesake, a nonprofit foundation that supports faith-based K–12 schools across the United States. It provides workspace for 25 employees, facilities for broadcast media production, and a conference center that welcomes educators from around the country each week for training and events.
The experience of the building and grounds immerse visitors and staff into the serenity of the surrounding landscape through native gardens, local materials and forms recalling vernacular barns of the area.
The scale of the building and its interiors is both familiar and grand, accommodating the intimate, small-group collaborations that take place during trainings and conferences while reflecting the grandeur of the surrounding landscape.