AIA Central States Emerging Professional

Hosted by: AIA Young Professional
​Location: Des Moines, Iowa

The competition was hosed by AIA Central States Emerging Professionals in Des Moines Iowa and tasked groups of four architecture students to re image the sky walks. Des Moines has one of the largest sky walk networks in the country which has had detrimental impacts on the street life of the city. The competition was  between other Universities and was completed in a 12 hour time limit. 

Design Team 
Adam Wiese
Alex Moore 
Even Wermers
Mariah Tobin

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Project Date: 2016

Upon visiting Des Moines our team viewed the sky walks as a strength for the city of that should be exploited. It was something that made the city unique and provided a layering of the urban context as shops and retail were located in both the sky walk level and the street. This lead our team in a  different direction than other teams a we created a proposal that challenged the competitions main question and the belief that sky walks have a negative effect on the public realm. We found that the main issue was the connections between the sky walks and the street level were difficult to navigate. Thus we created corners in the sky with exposed circulation. The corners in the sky were multi programmed with roof gardens and storm water retention tanks to combat Des Moines issues with flooding. The sky corners also acted as water filtration and purification sites using living machine technology and would be hard lined into adjacent buildings water systems cleaning black and grey water for reuse. Clad in a perforated metal panel the corners provided clear areas of access between the 3 dimensional public realm.