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Rehabilitative environment Landscape architecture students and incarcerated women transform barren prison yard into beautiful, bountiful landscape PAGE 2
THERAPEUTIC LANDSCAPES
By Teddi Barron, News Service
LA students, female offenders grow thriving garden and more There’s no textbook for this. No recipe with precise measurements. No set of instructions for what they’re doing. Because no one has done anything quite like this before: Improbable teams of college students and incarcerated women continue to transform acres of barren prison yard into a beautiful, bountiful landscape full of life—and now food. The ongoing partnership between Iowa State’s Department of Landscape Architecture and the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW) in Mitchellville is in its third year of providing hands-on learning experiences to students and offenders alike. The students discover the pitfalls and rewards of putting their designs into practice, while the offenders gain meaningful vocational and life skills. During the first project in 2013, the team constructed three multipurpose outdoor classrooms. Last year, they designed and constructed a decompression area for staff, and planted 260 trees and about one acre of native prairie flowers and grasses. Those projects won a 2015 Student Award of Excellence in Community Service from the American Society of Landscape Architects, which will be featured in the October issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine and presented at the ASLA Annual Meeting in Chicago in November. This summer, the team planted a nearly one-acre production garden of vegetables and herbs that already yields dozens of pounds daily. They also designed and installed a healing garden for the prison’s special needs population. Research has shown that healthy outdoor environments are restorative and can generate rehabilitative effects, says 2
Top: A new herb garden provides seasoning for meals at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Photo by Alison Weidemann. Above: Iowa State team members Jake Oswald, Hannah Henderson, Tara Bounds, Assistant Professor Julie Stevens, Jacob Brouillette and Jake Stodola with offenders who worked on the construction projects this summer. Photo courtesy of ICIW staff.
Assistant Professor Julie Stevens, who leads the collaboration with ICIW Warden Patti Wachtendorf. Iowa Department of Corrections administrators expect the project to become a national model for creating humane and healing landscapes in a restrictive prison environment. “The environment we give the women makes a difference in their attitudes and mentality,” Wachtendorf said. “We’re making this prison a little bit softer so the women can make the changes needed to get out and not come back.”
Moines. Graduate student Tara Bounds, Orion, Illinois (MLA 2015), designed and supervised the prairie plantings last year and remained actively involved this year. They worked with kitchen staff early on to determine how many of which vegetables to plant to help feed the more than 650 women at the prison. They settled on tomatoes, bush beans, sweet potatoes, potatoes, squash and several herbs.
Growing veggies in the yard
Stevens estimates the produce garden will provide as much as $60,000 worth of food to the ICIW kitchen this year and “we’re just getting started.”
Five undergraduate landscape architecture students worked on the project from February through August. They included Jacob Brouillette, Des Moines; Hannah Henderson, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; Jake Oswald, Murray, Iowa; Jake Stodola, Shellsburg, Iowa; and Kayla Volkmer, Des
Besides dealing with early summer rains and ravenous rabbits, they faced hurdles unheard of in backyard gardening: No stakes, nails, wires, strings or water hoses. Tools were allowed only when the ISU crew was on grounds.
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Three days each week, a truck with a water tank parks next to the vegetable beds so offenders on the landscape crew can fill watering cans. It takes eight offenders more than an hour to water all of the beds. “It took us a while to figure out how to do it without hoses. It’s not ideal, but the system is actually working,” Stevens said. “It seems daunting, but the women pay more attention to the plants when they water by hand, and then we have great conversations about their observations.” Over the summer, the offenders spent the remainder of their eight-hour daily shifts working side-by-side with the students, setting stone block borders, building gravel paths and planting in the special needs garden.
A special garden place Psychologists and counselors from the prison’s special needs facility came to Stevens and her students, asking for a garden for those who have mental and physical health issues. They are mostly confined to the indoors and a secure patio unit overlooking a bleak landscape. The students designed a therapeutic garden located on a gentle slope. It features seating areas and paths to a planter in the center courtyard. The planter bed will contain an interactive and varying display of seasonal plants. At the highest elevation of the garden, a limestone wall for sitting will fade into the hillside; at the lowest point, a rain garden will help handle storm water responsibly. “It’s important that the women with special needs have a variety of options and feel safe and comfortable in this space,” said Oswald. “We chose plants that have different colors and textures to be visually interesting and tactile,” said Henderson. “And we designed it so the plants will be like a mural when they’re looking from the upper stories of the healthcare building.”
On-site learning curve The students learned a great deal during the past seven months, much of which could never be found in a textbook. “We’re learning a lot of communication skills,” Henderson said. “For example,
how to communicate with others who don’t know design jargon, or explain why something needs to be redone.” “After developing the plan, we had to figure out where to phase construction— that was challenging, especially given the security constraints,” Stodola said. Oswald said learning to think about the mechanics of the construction process— like whether or not a skidsteer can fit through a space specified in your design— has been valuable. But the biggest lesson for him was being flexible. “A lot changed once we got here. The more flexible you can be, the more successful you’ll be on a site because it rarely goes as planned. We aim for the best-case scenario,” he said.
The student-designed ICIW master plan diagram shows project locations from the past three years.
The offenders are learning, too, Wachtendorf said. “The women here are really taking an interest in nature, which they never did before,” she said. Stevens, students and offenders are developing a curriculum on gardening to potentially create paths for offenders to seek education beyond prison. “While we’re teaching them about horticulture, landscape and design, they’re also learning life skills, job skills, angermanagement skills,” Stevens said.
For the first project in 2013, students designed and built three multipurpose outdoor classrooms with limestone bench seating and native plantings.
Time to evaluate “We’re at the point where we need to see how we’re impacting various populations. We’ll survey the offenders to learn more about how they’re using the outdoor classroom space,” Stevens said. With help from the counseling staff, they’ll also conduct a survey to identify offenders’ stress and depression levels before and after spending time in the new landscape. Stevens and Wachtendorf want to document impacts and share findings with other institutions to help them think differently about the prison environment.
Students rake gravel for an outdoor path this summer at the ICIW. Photos by Alison Weidemann.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to show that the changes we’re making are having positive impacts on offenders and staff and they feel calm and motivated by the work,” Stevens said. “We know we have women here who find this restorative. They love the idea that they’re growing food for their fellow inmates.” An offender plants perennials in the healing garden. Photo by Julie Stevens.
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JULIE LARSEN MAHER
By Heather Sauer
Conservation photographer documents endangered wildlife Growing up on a farm in Underwood, Iowa, Julie Larsen Maher “loved to spend time in the woods and streams that ran through it. We had deer, coyotes and birds of prey on and around our land. I enjoyed watching the wildlife in different seasons, following their tracks.” Today, Larsen Maher (BA 1981 Advertising Design) tracks wildlife with a camera, highlighting threats to species like vultures (intentional poisoning and environmental toxins) and hippos (illegal hunting for meat and teeth) and their habitats, and the efforts being made to save them. Larsen Maher is only the sixth person—and first woman—to serve as staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), founded as the New York Zoological Society in 1895 and now devoted to saving wildlife and wild places across the globe through science, conservation action, education and inspiring people to value nature. With her photos, Larsen Maher documents some of the world’s leading conservationists, and the culture, wildlife and wild lands they aim to protect. She joined the WCS in 1991 as art director of publications, designing the society’s former magazine, annual reports, zoo maps, brochures and other materials. Prior to her staff photographer appointment in 2004, she worked closely with two predecessors as their art director and backup photographer. Larsen Maher now works with WCS zoo and field staff at five wildlife parks in New York City—the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo—and at some of its 500 project sites in the US and more than 60 countries around the world. 4
Top: Larsen Maher photographed this hippo from a small boat on the Victoria Nile River in Uganda. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS. Above: She documented the US government’s six-ton stockpile of confiscated elephant ivory prior to its destruction in New York City’s Times Square. Photo © WCS.
“From my art direction days, I knew the value of good photos. Now, I get to take those photos and write about them,” she said.
No two days the same Larsen Maher curates the WCS Wild View photo blog, blog.wcs.org, where she shares powerful images accompanied by first-hand accounts of encounters with southern elephant seals in Patagonia, blue iguanas in the Cayman Islands and African lions in Uganda. And she documents animals and activities closer to home, such as a tally of native turtle populations on the Bronx River and the resurgence of humpback whales feeding off the shores of New Jersey and Long Island, New York. “No two days are the same, whether I work in the zoos or in the field.
It’s about as different as you can get working between the two—the fast pace of the city, or a world away in remote places with no running water and no electricity within the forests, savannas and mountains of places like Madagascar, Uganda and Argentina,” Larsen Maher said. “Bad hair days are a way of life. Extreme conditions—heat, cold, bugs, mudslides—are part of my job when in the field, and outreach, education and publicity are part when I return to New York.” Larsen Maher learned the basics in a traditional black-and-white photography course at Iowa State and had experience from the art direction side with 35mm color slides and film, but most of her career has been spent using digital equipment.
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“I switched jobs when the industry was switching to digital photography, so for me, it was good timing. Slides took a good deal more time and cost to process, including scanning and mailing. Digital photos can be shared and used to promote our zoos and field work around the world so much faster,” she said. To enhance her skills in the evolving online environment, Larsen Maher is working toward a master’s degree in interactive media at Quinnipiac University, Hamden, Connecticut. Her graduate work
has been essential in creating new digital initiatives for WCS like the photo blog, she said. Larsen Maher is grateful to have found a career that combines her passions for wildlife, photography, hiking, travel and writing, and allows her to make a difference.
for breath 16,000 feet above sea level to photograph Bolivian farmers whose livelihoods—like the wildlife that share their home in the high Andes—are at risk from a drier climate and receding glaciers, “my biggest accomplishment is taking photos that bring a story to life from parts of the world that many may never get to visit,” Larsen Maher said.
Whether “bushwhacking through nearly impenetrable bogs in the central woods of the Adirondacks” to document the effects of encroaching development, or battling
“People want to save what they can see. Photographing nature and our efforts to protect it is the most important part of my work.”
Amur (Siberian) tiger in winter at Tiger Mountain, Bronx Zoo, New York City. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.
“People want to save what they can see. Photographing nature and our efforts to protect it is the most important part of my work.” Julie Larsen Maher © WCS
Julie Larsen Maher © WCS
Photo © WCS
Left: A female chimpanzee carries her baby in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. She drags her right leg, maimed by a poacher’s wire snare. Center: One-month-old southern elephant seal “weaners” on the Valdes Peninsula, Argentina. Right: Larsen Maher has a close encounter with an African elephant calf in Kenya.
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INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT By Heather Sauer
Students are players in bringing sports products to market In the coming months, a high school athlete may walk into a Dick’s Sporting Goods store and walk out with a Cutters Rev Pro football receiver glove designed by Iowa State industrial design students. That same player could purchase a Shock Doctor Compression Knit Knee Sleeve in packaging designed by another Iowa State student. In the future, an injury may lead an athlete to buy an innovative icing circulation device or sport recovery sandal—also designed by Iowa State students. All of this was made possible through a partnership between the ISU Department of Industrial Design and Shock Doctor, a leading manufacturer of protective and performance sports equipment headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “Shock Doctor has emerged as a flagship partner for the industrial design department,” said Department Chair David Ringholz. “The company has invested significant time in developing a relationship and finding every possible way of engaging with our students.” That engagement to date includes summer internships; sponsored studios, senior thesis and graduate projects; and independent consulting work by students with promising projects.
Common interests The relationship began when Bill Best— then Shock Doctor’s vice president of product development and now the vice president of research and development for parent company United Sports Brands—met Ringholz on a campus visit with his son. Both recognized the potential for collaboration. The following year, Shock Doctor established a competitive product 6
Top: Bill Best, United Sports Brands vice president of research and development, critiques Kevin Derr’s project. Above: Best presents Colin Behr and Mike Witzmann with a framed display of their renderings and a production sample of the glove they designed. Photos by Alison Weidemann.
development internship. The position went to Matt Slump (BID 2015 Industrial Design), Omaha, Nebraska, who spent the summer working on detailed aspects of product merchandising. “Retail packaging was a personal interest but something I’d never worked on before. It was an eye-opener to learn how important packaging design is and how many jobs there are for industrial designers in that area,” Slump said. Slump enjoyed the work so much, he jumped at the chance to expand and refine his ideas in the fall 2014 special topics class sponsored by Shock Doctor.
Special topics “Last fall we offered students the opportunity to work on group projects involving a redesign of Cutters football receiver gloves and on individual projects
related to product line extensions and new product development in areas ranging from sports medicine to retail merchandising,” Best said. “The group challenge was how to improve functionality while making the glove more exciting and brand aware. We advised the students of our intent to select the best design for sampling and bring it into the development and review cycle of our next product line,” he said. Student teams reverse-engineered the existing glove, considering advanced technologies that affect performance and examining aesthetics to enhance market appeal. They surveyed elite high school and college players to learn the pros and cons of the current glove. They studied competitors’ products to determine how they could make the Cutters glove stand out.
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Performance plus styling Colin Behr and Mike Witzmann integrated material innovations and stealth technology-inspired design to create a glove that was more flexible and breathable with a greater “cool factor.” Behr (BID 2015 Industrial Design / BS 2015 Apparel, Merchandising & Design), Marion, Iowa, had studied shoemaking at London College of Fashion and completed internships with Todd Snyder New York and New Balance prior to the studio. Drawing on his background in footwear design and development, “we looked at knitting technology used in highperformance footwear and incorporated something similar into our glove design,” said Behr, now a footwear designer for Nike Sportswear in Portland, Oregon. “That automatically leads to aesthetics, because knit fabric looks different from PU leather or Lycra.”
For the individual project, Slump developed packaging for Shock Doctor’s Ice Therapy and Performance Sports Therapy collections and a conceptual design for a retail environment the company is calling a “wellness center.”
Shock Doctor Ice Recovery Ankle Wrap packaging designed by Matt Slump.
Shock Doctor was so impressed with concepts presented by Slump and classmates Adam Graziano and Kevin Derr, the company sponsored their spring senior thesis and graduate projects.
Market potential
Cutters Rev Pro glove designed by Behr and Witzmann.
Many aspects of the team’s design proposal made it through the sampling process in the spring, and the glove, called the Rev Pro, will be launched in the 2016 Cutters product line in stores like Dick’s, Sports Authority and online retailers.
Recovery-themed interaction
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“You have to think of so many different factors—how the customer will hold the packaging, how they’re going to take the product out. You also want the package to stand out so it’s easy to find when displayed,” Slump said.
“Material choice helped us translate the design concept” inspired by the US Air Force’s F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, said Witzmann (BID 2015), Stillwater, Minnesota. In addition to the knit and PU microfiber base, “there’s a bonded TPU component, which gives it that stealthy look. The asymmetrical ‘cuts’ on the glove mimic the radar-reflecting facets on the fighter but improve dexterity for the wearer,” he said.
Slump changed packaging materials from plastic clamshells to paper boxes, and he revised the color palette from heavily black and orange—Shock Doctor’s signature colors—to predominantly white (suggestive of recovery and health).
Slump’s packaging concepts already are integrated into several product lines and were used to introduce Shock Doctor’s performance compression knit range this past May. Slump is now a design engineer for Excel Plastics.
Graziano (BDes 2013 Design), a secondyear graduate student from Ankeny, Iowa, and Derr (BID 2015), Eden Prairie, Minnesota—now enrolled in a master’s program in sports product management at the University of Oregon, Eugene— continued working with Shock Doctor as consultants this summer. Their projects are on a product launch timeline for introduction to the market in 2016 and arrival in stores in 2017, Best said.
“Adam proposed to bring ice therapy to the retail market in a way that has never been done before. We worked with him to refine the product for prototyping and now have hired a mechanical engineer to help ensure it will meet the highest possible performance standards.” Derr proposed a sport recovery sandal “with unique characteristics related to the function of the insole,” Best said. “We’re moving forward with factory engineers to finalize the design and materials for sample development.”
Future momentum The success achieved in so short a time frame has heightened expectations for the partnership between Shock Doctor, parent United Sports Brands and Iowa State. “Industry engagment is a natural progression of our curriculum and supportive of our learning outcomes. Students gain practice with advanced commercial concepts that impact market success by participating in sponsored projects,” Ringholz said. “Part of the value for the company is that students often do more than expected.” Shock Doctor renewed its summer internship opportunity and is sponsoring another special topics class this fall. “Shock Doctor—right up to our CEO— and the board of USB are all very excited by what we’ve done so far,” Best said. “We have elevated hopes and expectations for this relationship to continue to grow.” 7
IMPROVING WATER QUALITY
By Heather Sauer & Jaden Urbi
Vegetated floating islands tested on ISU’s Lake LaVerne Recent algal blooms on Iowa State University’s Lake LaVerne, caused by an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus, highlight the need to reduce pollutants and improve the health of the scenic campus landmark. A project by a team of College of Design faculty and graduate students aims to boost water quality in the lake and serve as a proof of concept for future efforts around Iowa. Austin Stewart, assistant professor of art and visual culture, and Mimi Wagner, associate professor of landscape architecture—both affiliate faculty in the Master of Design in Sustainable Environments graduate program—and John Downing, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, have worked with the Story County Soil and Water Conservation District to develop a low-maintenance, inexpensive treatment solution to enhance the water quality of small ponds and lakes in Iowa. The district won a nearly $42,000 grant from the Iowa Watershed Improvement Review Board and subcontracted with Iowa State for the pilot project, titled “Lake LaVerne Nutrient Pollution Reduction: Water Quality Enhancement in Small Ponds and Lakes Using Vegetated Floating Islands as Public Art.” It’s the largest external grant the College of Design has received to support research in a studio course, Wagner said. They chose Lake LaVerne because of its public location, iconic status with alumni and students, relatively small size and impaired condition, Stewart said.
Innovative solution The six graduate students in Stewart and Wagner’s spring-semester Sustainable Design Studio developed the project. They researched what VFIs do, why they made a good solution for water bodies such as 88
Top: Researchers collect water samples from beneath one of the three floating islands. Photo by Alison Weidemann. Above: Associate Professor Mimi Wagner, sustainable environments graduate student Sushmita Kotta, Hyderabad, India, and a community volunteer launch the first VFI on the lake. Photo by Heather Sauer.
Lake LaVerne and which plants would most effectively remove nutrients and contaminants. “I had never heard about anything like [VFIs] before this studio,” said sustainable environments graduate student Shelley Vrchota (BS 2002 Community & Regional Planning), Des Moines. “There is a lot of research and information about preventive measures and design but not much remedial that doesn’t involve chemicals.” Wagner, whose expertise is in water quality, wetlands and urban stormwater management, worked with the students to ensure the technical aspects of their design would conform to best practices and the collected data would be valid. Stewart advised them on the design and fabrication of the islands as public art and on the outreach components.
Construction and launch Three islands, each about as large as a king-size mattress, were constructed on a base layer of pond filter material, which encourages the microbial growth critical to proper breakdown of phosphorus and nitrates. A layer of shredded coconut coir serves as bedding for 12 species of native wetland plants, such as great blue lobelia and soft rush, that are known to remove high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. Marine foam injected into the base layer helps keep the islands afloat. In May the team deployed the VFIs in highly visible locations along the south side of Lake LaVerne. “We wanted the islands to be in the deepest parts so the roots wouldn’t attach
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to the lake bottom. We also wanted them to be close to the aerators so there would be more movement and they could treat a greater volume of water,” said Tara Bounds, Orion, Illinois, who graduated with a Master of Landscape Architecture in August.
Research and Outreach collected water samples from beneath the islands and in control locations across the lake to test for nitrogen and phosphorus content. Downing’s Limnology Lab is doing the lab analysis.
Each VFI also features a large, orangepainted steel arrow lined with LEDs powered by a solar panel. The arrows help emphasize and illustrate the watershed flow into the lake. They light up for a couple of hours after sunset each evening, then shut off automatically.
Wrapping up
Increasing public awareness
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designed informational signage installed around Lake LaVerne;
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created a website—laverne-islands. weebly.com—to inform the public about the project and provide resources for people to map their watersheds and design their own VFIs; and developed an environmental education package for use by teachers to engage Iowa students in learning about the importance of water quality.
“One of the key reasons for doing this project on Lake LaVerne and incorporating an art component was to make it public, to really increase people’s understanding of water-quality issues. The arrows on the islands attract attention and the signs around the lake inform passersby about the project,” Stewart said. “I love seeing people read the signs,” said Rebekka (Brown) Reuter (BID 2013 Industrial Design), Houston, Texas, who received her Master of Design in Sustainable Environments (MDesSE) in August. “I was on the other side of the lake for another project and passed a couple of people who were talking about nitrogen and nitrates, and I thought, yes! It sparked conversation, and that’s what it needs to do,” Reuter said.
Monitoring and analysis Over the summer, sustainable environments students together with staff from the Institute for Design
Assistant Professor Austin Stewart shows Kotta, Shelley Vrchota and landscape architecture grad student Shannon Hoy, Clive, Iowa, how to inject marine foam into the island’s pond-filter base. Photo by Tara Bounds.
The team is planning a public event in late September to celebrate and further publicize the project before the tissue samples are collected and the islands are removed from the lake in mid-October.
In addition to the islands and arrows, the students:
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In addition, “vegetative tissue, all roots and aboveground tissue from two of the three islands will be harvested and lab analyzed for nutrient content. This data will objectively quantify the nutrient reduction achieved by the floating islands on a square-foot basis,” Wagner said.
At that time, the steel arrow and solar panel will be removed from the remaining VFI and it will be donated to Story County Conservation. SCC plans to redeploy it at Dakins Lake, a county park near Zearing in northeast Story County.
Vrchota and Tara Bounds insert plants into the coconut coir bedding. Each island contains 50 wetland plants. Photo by Heather Sauer.
A graduate assistant will continue to analyze the data and, based on this research, develop design standards for VFIs for use on small ponds and lakes in Iowa, Wagner said.
Lessons beyond the classroom The practical training was invaluable for students. “They got to experience the whole process of a grant being funded, working out contracts, putting together bills of materials and developing public outreach and educational materials, in addition to designing, fabricating and installing the islands,” Stewart said.
VFIs remove pollutants from the water and provide a healthy habitat for insects and wildlife.
“It was a pretty steep learning curve to begin with but very beneficial for me. I probably will pursue something to do with water quality as a career after graduation,” said Vrchota, who will receive his MDesSE in December. “I also discovered a passion for environmental education.” “It’s fun to see College of Design grad students develop a very comfortable ability to talk about water-quality problems in a fairly technical way,” Wagner said. “It makes them better citizens.” IDRO research associates Jacob Wilson and Lucas Buscher label water sample bottles for analysis. Photo by Alison Weidemann.
http://jenniferdrinkwater.com
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HOMECOMING AWARDS College, university to honor distinguished alumni and friends CHRISTIAN PETERSEN DESIGN AWARD Established in 1980 to recognize alumni, staff and friends of the university for contributions to the advancement of design through personal aesthetic achievement, exceptional support, or extraordinary encouragement and service
Debi Durham Sioux City, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad appointed Debi Durham director of the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) in January 2011. As one of her first orders of business, Durham worked with the governor and legislators to restructure the department and create a public-private partnership—the Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress—to improve Iowa’s delivery of economic development services. Durham now serves as director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA), the public arm that replaces IDED and oversees the traditional economic development programs. Additionally, Durham oversees IEDA’s efforts to expand Iowa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in collaboration with the Iowa Innovation Corporation, the private side of the partnership. Durham also serves as a senior adviser on the Home Base Iowa initiative to place veterans in rewarding careers with Iowa employers and as a member of the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. She previously was president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, 10
Siouxland Initiative and Siouxland Chamber Foundation for 15 years. She was recognized as a Janus Fellow by the Janus Institute in 2014 and is a member of the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame. Durham holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Missouri Southern State University. She is a member of the Briar Cliff University board of directors and the ISU College of Design Advancement Council.
DESIGN ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Established in 1988 to recognize outstanding creative and professional achievements of alumni in all of the college’s disciplines
Jeremy Caniglia BFA 1993 Art & Design (Drawing, Painting, Printmaking) Omaha, Nebraska Jeremy Caniglia is a professional artist and illustrator whose work has been published and exhibited internationally and is in private collections around the world. Perhaps best known in the horror genre, he is equally prolific in fantasy art and portraiture. Caniglia’s work has appeared in numerous books and movies produced by Bantam Books/Random House, Cemetery Dance Publications, Easton Press, IDW Publishing, Anchor Bay Entertainment, IDT Entertainment, Showtime Networks and Warner Brothers, among others. He received the 2004 International Horror Guild Award for best artist in dark fantasy and horror and the IlluXCon 2012 Illustrator Artist of the Year award.
Caniglia also teaches art at Creighton Preparatory School and at the Joslyn Art Museum’s Kent Bellows Center for Visual Arts, both in Omaha. He regularly teaches and lectures at museums and universities throughout the US. He was named Iowa Western Community College 2014 and 2015 Art Teacher of the Year, Creighton Prep 2015 Teacher of the Year and Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 2015 National Outstanding Educator. Caniglia holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a professional teaching certificate from Creighton University. He is a state trustee of the Sons of Italy in America, a trustee of Omaha’s Santa Lucia Festival and a mentor with the Kent Bellows Mentoring Program. He is a member of the ISU College of Design Advancement Council and ISU Department of Art and Visual Culture Advisory Council.
Prem Sundharam MArch 2004 Architecture Gilbert, Arizona A principal with DLR Group in Phoenix, Prem Sundharam serves as the firm’s sustainability team leader and the southwest regional sector leader of its Practice Forum, which focuses on integrated design processes such as building information modeling and energy modeling. As the regional practice leader, Sundharam collaborates with 100 employees on business practice innovations to provide the best design solutions and design service experiences for DLR Group’s clients. Sundharam led the development of DLR Group’s national Sustainability
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Opportunities Matrix tool and is creating a “lessons learned” database of best practices within the southwest region. He has more than a decade of experience in K-12, higher education, correctional, justice and corporate design project management, including 12 completed LEED-certified/registered projects. He also is writing a book on net-zero-energy design. Sundharam, who holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, India, is a LEED Accredited Professional in Building Design and Construction, a Building Energy Modeling Professional and a Certified Energy Manager. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and was named a Design Futures Council Emerging Leader in 2014. He is an ISU Order of the Knoll member.
OUTSTANDING YOUNG ALUMNI AWARD Established by the Iowa State University Alumni Association in 1968 to recognize ISU alumni, age 40 and under, who have excelled in their professions and provided service to their communities
Suzanne Hutchinson Verma BA 1999 Biological/ Pre-Medical Illustration Plano, Texas Suzanne Hutchinson Verma is an assistant professor at
the Texas A&M University Baylor College of Dentistry who has become an international expert in applying navigational technology to facial prosthetic reconstruction. She lectures nationally and internationally on the use of technological advancements in craniofacial reconstruction, and she is a passionate educator in the medical and dental community. In some cases, Verma does her work pro bono because of how strongly she believes that prosthetic reconstruction can help to improve and transform her patients’ lives. Verma’s career started with biological illustration at Iowa State, where she began to explore opportunities to use her training for work as an anaplastologist, treating patients with facial disfigurement due to cancer, trauma and birth defects. Today she helps mentor ISU biological/ pre-medical illustration majors with similar career goals. In 2014, she returned to Ames to deliver the keynote address at the university’s Biological/Pre-Medical Illustration 30th Anniversary Conference.
inspire Inspire is published twice per year by the Iowa State University College of Design and is mailed to more than 15,600 alumni and friends. Newsletter Staff Editors Heather Sauer, Charles Sauer Writers Teddi Barron, Heather Sauer, Jaden Urbi Photographers Tara Bounds, Julie Larsen Maher, Heather Sauer, Julie Stevens, Alison Weidemann Graphic Designer Alison Weidemann Contact Us 134 College of Design Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011-3091 designews@iastate.edu design.iastate.edu facebook.com/CollegeofDesign @ISUdesign
Verma is an active member of numerous professional organizations, vice presidentelect for the International Anaplastology Association and past vice president of the Board for Certification in Clinical Anaplastology. She also serves on the ISU Department of Art and Visual Culture Advisory Council.
Alumni Updates Have you married, moved, changed jobs, published or exhibited your work or earned an award? Let us know at www.design.iastate.edu/ shareyournews.php.
Verma, who earned her Master of Associated Medical Science in biomedical visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been recognized as a Vesalian Scholar by the Association of Medical Illustrators.
On the Cover Iowa State landscape architecture students and offenders at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville work together to create a restorative and healing environment. Photos by Alison Weidemann.
College of Design alumni will be honored with the Design Achievement Award and the Outstanding Young Alumni Award during Homecoming at the ISU Alumni Association’s 84th annual Honors & Awards Ceremony, Friday, Oct. 30. Christian Petersen Design Award recipient Debi Durham also will be recognized. The public event will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Benton Auditorium, Scheman Building. A dessert reception will follow. View complete bios for the 2015 honorees and past recipients at design.iastate.edu/Alumni/awards.php.
Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran. Inquiries can be directed to the Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, 3350 Beardshear Hall, (515) 294-7612.
FSC logo (reversed in white) goes in here
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Office of the Dean 134 College of Design Ames, IA 50011-3091
VOLUME 5 | ISSUE 2 | FALL 2015
College of Design to host program at Venice Art Biennale Forty-nine Iowa State University students who are studying in Italy this semester with the College of Design Rome Program will participate in Biennale Sessions Oct. 22-24 at the Venice Biennale 2015, 56th International Art Exhibition. Building on the success of the program sponsored by the ISU Department of Architecture at the Architecture Biennale last fall, the College of Design is presenting a two-day workshop and one-day colloquium addressing this year’s Biennale theme, “All the World’s Future.” The theme addresses the deep divisions and wounds, inequalities and uncertainties we face, and aims “to investigate how the tensions of the outside world act on the … expressive energies of artists…,” said Biennale President Paolo Baratta.
The Iowa State students, majoring in graphic design, integrated studio arts and interior design, will follow the format established last year by using a single material—in this case, rolls of white, semi-transparent cotton gauze— to transform the exhibition space. The workshop will examine the subtheme of “bond,” specifically, the bond between mother and child. It will draw particular attention to the motherchild relationship in prison and the practice of separating women inmates from their newborn infants. “Gauze metaphorically relates well to the theme of a wounded world, to the idea of bandaging, wrapping and healing,” said Rome Resident Director Pia Schneider, who is coordinating the activity. It also
Gauze will be used in a project to represent the bond between mother and child and the healing of wounds. Photo by Alison Weidemann.
may reference the act of swaddling and bonding with children, she said. Invited speakers from philosophy, journalism and the corrections community will share insights at the colloquium, which will provide an opportunity to further investigate the theme and reflect on the workshop performance, Schneider said.