Kansas City, Missouri-based el dorado has been awarded an AIA Small Projects Award for the Girl Scouts Camp Prairie Schooner bunkhouse. The theme of this year’s national award was “Small Gesture, Big Impact.”

High on a bluff over the Little Blue River sits Camp Prairie Schooner. The Girl Scouts of NE Kansas and NW Missouri hired el dorado to design a new bunkhouse/trail center, as well as modern restrooms and shower facilities. The project also includes flex rooms and kitchens to serve up to 40 campers year round. The 7,200-square-foot two-building project is sited near the camp’s current dining facility to create a drop off zone for campers and “council rings.” The illuminated facades of the project act as a night lantern for campers, as well as a beacon for the camp from the road.

el dorado’s design is meant to emphasis the Girl Scouts’s investment in promoting the confidence, self-reliance, and problem solving skills, ideas that are all part of the organization’s mission. By bring the conversation of architecture to the camp, the Scouts hope to encourage an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics).