Architecture Students Present Prison Beautification Project to Fort Madison Residents

Wednesday evening, an open house was held in the fort madison high school library for residents to view 11 different beautification designs of the riverfront, marina and old prison presented by architectural students from Iowa State University.

The Architectural students toured the old prison and the city earlier this fall as well as meeting with residents to get a realistic yet inspiring beautification plan for the riverfront area.

“Basically what they have is an assessment of what they saw and what they heard the constraints that they are finding, the opportunities that they are finding and then they are solving those opportunities and constraints and making connections through design decisions, they should be able to articulate what it is that they are designing and how it’s going to impact the community.” Says Julie Steven’s the professor of Architecture of Iowa State University.

About 80 residents filled the high school library to view the various designs and left comments and feedback for the students.

Claire Kinley a third year architectural student presented an ironic concept for the use of the old prison. Kinley, “I’m proposing a bistro called the ‘Last Meal’ and it would be located in the corner where they used to execute people in the prison, and I’m im very interested in teh irony and kind of introducing irony into the prison, and have it be fun because what a better contrast to have in the prison than fun and excitement.”

Other students offered up some interesting ideas as well like turning the old Sheaffer pen building into a loft and ways to work with the floodplan area to accomodate shops and restaurants.

Now that the students have further feedback from residents they will do another round of revisions before presenting their final projects to the city of Fort Madison in Ames, on December 9th.