Brenna Fransen, Jihoon Kim & Run Dan Lin
Author: Heather Sauer | Image: Heather Sauer
An interview with fifth-year architecture students Brenna Fransen, Jihoon Kim and Run-Qian Lin about their project “Life After Collapse” has been published on KooZA/rch, a student-led experimental digital platform that focuses on unbuilt work exploring the architectural imaginary. The team developed their project in the spring 2021 ARCH 402 urban design studio taught by professor Kimberly Zarecor and assistant teaching professor Andrew Gleeson.
The studio asked students to consider life in and around Des Moines 100 years in the future. This team focused its research on the rapidly growing suburb of Waukee and its coal-mining history, which prompted a look at how former Midwest mining towns might change over time due to the threat of subsidence as well as how to reconnect the community to the energy economy through clean energy generation.