AMES, IA (04/16/2018)-- Kylee Cangas, an Iowa State University third-year architecture student, won the 2018 Richard F. Hansen Prize in Architecture awarded by the ISU Department of Architecture.
Iowa State alumni Richard F. and Barbara E. Hansen established the Hansen Prize in 2004 to recognize the winner(s) of a design studio competition held in conjunction with the Richard F. Hansen Lecture in Architecture. Jurors for this year's competition included guest speaker Dan Wood, FAIA, a founding partner of WORK Architecture Company; architecture department chair Deborah Hauptmann and professor emeritus Gregory Palermo.
Cangas, Bettendorf, IA, 52722 was one of five students selected to present projects completed in the fall 2017 architecture third-year studio sections taught by assistant professor Firat Erdim and lecturers Roman Chikerinets, Leslie Forehand, Kevin Lair and Sungduck Lee.
'Where the Road Caved In'
Cangas' winning project, "Where the Road Caved In" - "an exploration of the positive and negative effects that nature and architecture can impose on one another" - began with inspiration found at Ledges State Park south of Boone.
"While visiting the site, I found an area where the road had caved in [due to flooding]. I noticed an interesting dialogue where processes in nature reclaimed developed infrastructure and decided to look further into this phenomenon," she said.
Cangas intentionally challenged Forehand's assignment to "speculate a robot that takes part of the landscape and turns it into a material to be used architecturally" by instead designing a team of robots that take apart the built landscape (abandoned or disused human development) and transform it into reusable architectural material.
Cangas used GIS point cloud and rain-flow analysis in her site study to better understand the natural forces behind the road's collapse, or "the extraction of architecture from the landscape," she said.
For her final design of an environmental library, Cangas proposed an installation of columns "that would make the data I had collected from the site visible through spatial experience." Her robots would build structures around the columns from the material they collected on the site to create different "reading rooms" for reflection and learning.
"[I sought] to create architecture that attempts to equalize human influence on the planet [by designing] robots that deconstruct existing buildings and create new buildings from that reused material only," she said.
The jury was impressed with the diverse range of approaches students took with their projects and particularly appreciated the way that Cangas pushed the design process through experimentation and exploration, Wood said when announcing the prize on March 7.
Cangas will receive a $1,500 scholarship. Other finalists in the Hansen Prize competition included:
- Tarun Bhatia, Bur Dubai, United Arab Emirates (Chikerinets' studio)
- Alicia O'Neill, Stillwater, Minnesota (Erdim's studio)
- Michael Stanley, Sugar Grove, Illinois (Lee's studio)
- Evan Williams, Bolingbrook, Illinois (Lair's studio)
About Iowa State
At Iowa State University, students don't get just an average college experience. They get an adventure. After all, we offer students a challenging career-oriented academic setting paired with a welcoming campus environment. And above all else, we encourage our students to achieve - and we provide the support they need to do just that.
Iowa State University is one of the nation's most student-centered public research universities and is recognized among the top 50 public universities in the nation by U.S.News and World Report. With hundreds of student clubs and organizations, thousands of internship and co-op opportunities, and more than 80 learning communities, the university offers a student experience rich in academic and social diversity. Students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries choose to come to Ames, Iowa, to study with world-class scholars and hone their leadership skills.
Part of what makes Iowa State such a special place for our students to learn and grow is the uniqueness of the faculty and staff who work here. Our faculty and staff have established a leading-edge reputation among peers for innovative interdisciplinary academic programs, an ever-expanding learning community program, and entrepreneurial experiences for students.
Plus, Ames has been recognized as the second-best college town with a population under 250,000. And did we mention we've also been voted one of the top 10 best places to live in America? So it's no wonder why our students love it here.
At Iowa State, students will find 100 majors, 800 clubs, and one amazing adventure.
Learn more: www.iastate.edu
NOTE: You are receiving this press release because the student or their parents are from your area. This press release above was prepared for: Managing Editor - River Cities Reader.
Attachments
- "Where the Road Caved In" rendering by Kylee Cangas: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/105771/WhereTheRoadCavedInRenderingKyleeKangas.jpg
- "Where the Road Caved In" section by Kylee Cangas: http://app.readmedia.com/news/attachment/105772/WhereTheRoadCavedInSectionKyleeCangas.jpg
