KU students turn blighted Airstream into mobile classroom

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- University of Kansas architecture students have transformed a blighted camping vehicle into a classroom on wheels.

The renovated 1972 Airstream Sovereign Land Yacht is called the KU Mobile Collaboratory, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. It features storage carts that can be pulled out and unfolded into tables, benches that double as storage and countertops that fold down to hold displays or up for space.

"I'm most proud that it can be used for anything and not just exhibits," fourth-year architecture student Jessica Luber, of Kansas City, Missouri, said. She was in a design-build class that refurbished the Airstream last year and recalls mice falling out of the old ceiling when students started pulling it down. "Yep," Luber said, "they were alive."

The School of Architecture, Design and Planning hopes to establish borrowing procedures so researchers and faculty can tow it around the state for public-interest projects.

Robert Castillo, a doctoral student in architecture who was checking out displays inside the vehicle at an open house earlier this month, said he'd seen the trailer while it was still in progress.

"It turned out great," he said. "The outside still looks like an Airstream, so it's kind of a surprise when you get inside."

Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com