In the fall of 2021, a team of professional designers and students began converting the 18-foot box truck into a state-of-the-art venue on wheels. The designbuild phase is led by a collaboration between Jessica Scheuerman of Partners for Livable Omaha; Professor Jeffrey L. Day, FAIA of the College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and director of FACT (Fabrication And Construction Team); Actual Architecture Company; Omaha-based theatrical designer and technical director Brendan Greene-Walsh; and Nebraska Innovation Studio. Designbuild engineering support is provided by Andrew Johnson, PE, Sr. Structural Engineer and Thompson, Dreessen & Dorner, Inc.

The bulk of the designbuild phase occurred within the framework of the FACT Collaborate! Studio class offered by UNL’s College of Architecture. During the fall 2021 semester, a team of 16, 4th year architecture and interior design students designed and began construction inside the Nebraska Innovation Studio, one of the nation’s top makerspaces, a 16,000-square-foot facility with a full metal shop, wood shop and rapid prototyping room in Lincoln.