West Junior High School Student Council, co-presidents, Maggie Hull, left, and her twin sister, Rosie, enjoy the school's renovated courtyard, designed by a group of Kansas University architecture students.

Students didn’t like to hang out much in the old West Junior High School courtyard.

“It was dirty,” said Rosie Hull, co-president of the WJHS Student Council. “There was no place to sit at all. There were some trees that were really bad. It wasn’t appealing at all. Nobody wanted to be there.”

Hull and other students at West, 2700 Harvard Road, are expecting that to change next school year, thanks to the work of a Kansas University architecture class.

The Studio 401 class, made of fourth-year architecture students, spent the spring semester designing and building an improved courtyard for the school.

The new area includes benches, a new tree and other landscaping, better drainage control, new sidewalks and ivy on one wall.

The project was funded through $5,000 from the WJHS Student Council, $5,000 from the Lawrence school district and $10,000 from KU. Sunrise Garden Center, Home Depot and Diamond Everly Roofing, all of Lawrence, and Venteak, a Miami hardwood floor and deck company, donated materials for the project.

The courtyard is behind the school’s main entrance and is a frequent entryway for visitors. It’s also a hangout for students killing time before and after school and during their lunch periods.

“It’s a lot nicer,” said Colter Scott, who will be a ninth-grader at West in the fall. “That’s where we hang out, and it’s where everybody walks through to get to the gym. It’s nicer than walking by rotten trees and mud.”

Kyle Wilson, a member of the KU class who worked on the project, said this is the second time Studio 401 worked with a Lawrence school. The class helped refurbish the playground at Hillcrest School in 2003.

“It was a dreary place,” Wilson said of the former courtyard. “It really livened up the area, not only for the kids but for the parents, too, who come through there.”

John Gaunt, dean of the School of Architecture, said he hoped KU students could find more ways to help the community like the West project.

“It really is community service, and it’s very meaningful,” he said. “It’s a good little model for what we should do.”