Internships
Community Visioning -
Jeffery L. Bruce and Company
Community Visioning is a program that is a partnership between Iowa State University Extension and the Iowa Department of Transportation that works with small communities in Iowa that evaluate transportation networks.
​
I had two roles in this program: a design intern with Jeffery L. Bruce and Company and a student employee with ISU Extension. The below projects are two of the communities that I worked with to create a simple structure for community development. These plans usually focus on transportation improvements like sidewalks, intersections, and trails but often include parks, stormwater features, and visual aids.
​
My task with community visioning was to record and sometimes lead focus groups in these communities with residents based off of main demographics. Once back at ISU, we would create development maps to synthesize the comments from the groups and then synthesize all the comments into cohesive maps to share with the residents and with the design firms.
Jeffery L. Bruce and Company is one of the design firms that works with these communities, at no charge, to develop semi-realized designs based on the goals that the community has determined. I worked with Jeffery L. Bruce on their typical projects, but also spent much of my time with them on developing these illustrations for sample projects that the communities could do in the future.
Hampton and Monona are two communities that I personally was able to follow through the program, and have continued to do some periphery checks up with over the subsequent years. Both communities have had pieces of the plans and projects started or completed in the 6 years since they were part of the program.
Hampton
Hampton is a central Iowa community that is the county seat, with a growing Hispanic community that sits on existing rails to trail line. Of the three rail lines that initially ran through the town, only one is currently operational, though much of the abandoned lines are still owned by the railroad companies. The positive for Hampton is both companies have a history of donating their lands to Iowa program Rails to Trails. Connecting the existing parks in town and the state park nearby was a focus of the Visioning Committee.
The South Rail Line Park goal was to expand the existing park and trail system to the southeastern corner of town under served compared to the rest of the town. It was also the largest owned vacant city lot, next to a city storage building, which is the ululating wall of trees.
Monona
Monona is a small community in the northeast corner of Iowa. It is a small farm town that sits on top of a hill with few connections to nearby towns, so the focus was on improving and expanding much of the existing infrastructure.
​
With Monona sitting on top of a hill, it is the top of three separate watersheds, and the downtown is the most significant contributor to the runoff in the area. The traffic calming bump-outs and stormwater water controls were placed to limit the number of parking stalls lost while maximizing the number of trees that would help shade their stark downtown.
​
Another prominent feature of Monona's downtown is the standard town square that hasn't had significant updates in decades. Along with updating the current elements of the town square, including the bathrooms, was to make the square the central point of a proposed circumnavigating trail system.
The other park in Monona is the Butterfly Trail that extends along the west side of the town's core and has a relatively new subdivision surrounding the trail. Connecting this subdivision to the rest of town, the new pool, and the school complex was the main focus of the visioning committee. Creating a trailhead at the dead-end street in the subdivision that directly abuts the prairie of the Butterfly Trail and creates the main pedestrian connection to the rest of Monona was important.
Stony Creek Landscaping
Below is the first residential design I did in my third year of college, completed while working with Stony Creek Landscapes, a design build-firm in Central Iowa. The project was to tame an unruly front Rhododendron that had to be removed and allow space for an existing Japanese Maple to grow, in it's already tight corner. This project was to build a planting bed for minimum cost, and that is relatively minimal maintenance.
The other details in the design are the rock drain pad on the north side of the house with a Tiger Eyes Sumac to compliment the Japanese Maple.
​
The rear side of the house removed an abandoned ground cover, and the homeowners planned to continue the planting when they had more funds.
