My first effort in public art, located in a rural part of Central Iowa, draws bicyclist and pedestrian visitors to an unexpected landscape— often overlooked by those traveling nearby on larger through-state corridors.
In 2007 I was working with RDG Planning and Design, an architecture and planning firm in Des Moines, Iowa. More specifically, I was a designer with RDG’s public art studio. Together with David Dahlquist, the leader of the RDG Art Studio, and a team of landscape architects and lighting designers, we revitalized a decommissioned freight train bridge for inclusion in a regional cycling and pedestrian trails network.
The bridge's rotating steel gates can be disorienting at high speeds on a bicycle– this effect encourages cyclists to slow down, or even stop at one of several lookout points. The bridge's powerful forced linear perspective is experienced when traveling from point A to point B, but gives way to the landscape on either side when visitors pause. For this reason the bridge is about celebrating its expansive river valley, as much as the structure itself.
Area residents use the bridge regularly for wildlife viewing and fresh-air exercise, and it's been a boon to the local economies of a handful of nearby small towns.
Press:
Des Moines Register: Central Iowa's most popular bike trail is..., April 8, 2015
"Once a gap in central Iowa's trail system, the High Trestle Trail Bridge is now the most popular segment of the region's more than 600 miles of trails, according to a new report."
BBC: 8 Amazing Footbridges, April 2, 2015
"Once a Union Pacific Railroad crossing of the Des Moines River in Iowa, the High Trestle Trail Bridge was reopened in 2011 as part of a 40km (25 mile)-long trail. Eight-hundred metres (half a mile) long and 40m (130ft) high, it rests on a series of concrete piers: they were known as ‘Iowa’s Stonehenge’ after the original bridge deck was removed. "
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150401-eight-amazing-footbridges
Awards:
2011 AIA Iowa Chapter Excellence in Design Merit Award;
2012 Sectional Lighting Award, Iowa/ Minnesota Illuminating Engineering Society
2012 National Lighting Award of Merit, Illuminating Engineering Society of North America
2012 Product Innovation Award, Architectural SSL Magazine
Public Art Network’s “Year in Review,” number 12 of over 400 international projects.