Sioux City Journal, IA
07-26-07
ISU Design West unveiled
Studio uses redesigned 1890s plant for 21st century education
By Michele Linck, Journal staff writer
Sunlight flooded the ISU Design West classroom and studio Wednesday,
heightening the contemporary feel of the redesigned 1890s steam plant and
adding an air of optimism to hopes it will put Sioux City on the must-study-here
map of Iowa State University students and local students, as well.
Reporters and neighbors of the newly resurrected space -- located off a south
alley behind Buffalo Alice on Historic Fourth Street -- were invited in to see the
finished project after months of design and construction work. A grand opening is
planned for September to give the public, the governor and ISU officials a look.
The university will offer coursework in four majors at Design West: architecture,
landscape architecture, interior design and urban planning. It can accommodate
20 to 30 students at a time. Some students will begin using the facility for short
periods in the fall. But it will probably be spring, when two faculty members will
begin work there, before semester-long classes are offered, said Susan Fey,
ISU's Design West program coordinator.
Studying in Sioux City is optional, not required. However Fey said that some
graduate students already have asked about doing their thesis work at Design
West. And, ISU is working with Western Iowa Tech Community College to offer
some core credit classes there.
"One day, when this project gains national acclaim, we can say, 'I was here at
the beginning," Fey told the 100 or so guests gathered for the occasion.
'Great Places' project
The $537,000 renovation/restoration was funded in part through the city's $1
million Iowa Great Places grant, along with support from ISU Extension Service,
the ISU College of Design, the city of Sioux City, the Siouxland Chamber
Foundation and local public-private partnerships.
Until last fall, the two-story (one underground), 7,000-square-foot space had
virtually been untouched for decades, its function of warming Historic Fourth
Street's massive buildings having been abandoned in the 1970s.
"It looked like the moon in here ... dusty," Nathan Kalaher remembered of his first
foray into the dark, two-story space, sporting a miner's lighted helmet. Kalaher, of
M+ Architects, was the principal designer for the center. He earned
undergraduate degrees in community and regional planning and architecture
from ISU, and a master's degree in architecture from Cornell University in Ithaca,
N.Y.
But he first got involved as co-chairman of the Sioux City Great Places
Committee, where the idea of creating an actual school of architecture emerged.
Kalaher was beaming like a new dad on Wednesday as he talked about how the
original 3-foot-thick red quartzite walls and heavy support beams work with the
contemporary, stark-white freestanding wall, cantilevered concrete staircases
with contemporary black steel railings and giant windows to reinterpret the space
for the 21st century.
Students will not only study in the building, they'll study how the building was put
together, he said.
One playful contemporary twist is provided by four plexiglass manhole covers
outside the building. They will put on quite a show for passersby at night, when
darkness allows a better view of the lighted displays and furnace room below,
said Dale McKinney, an M+ partner who oversaw Kalaher's work and served
Wednesday as a tour guide.
The facility will also be visible from Interstate 29 as steel letters proclaim "ISU
Design West" from its 80-foot-tall smokestack. "We really think that the building
and the opportunities that exist here will draw students," McKinney said.
Embracing innovation
In her welcoming remarks, Great Places Committee co-chairwoman Bev
Wharton, called the project "an exceptionally bold idea that called for a unique
urban space."
Fey praised ISU for its dedication not only to education, but to innovation.
"Design West is just that," she said, "offering students 'on the ground' education
in a community that embraces innovation as well as restoration, its history of
beautiful architecture and its future in progressive design."
Mayor Craig Berenstein noted Historic Fourth Street's "colorful" past, but called
its present state "another run of success...at revitalizing and restoring" historic
buildings.
For more information about Design West, e-mail Fey at susanfey@iastate.edu.