03/22/22

AMES, Iowa — Ross Altheimer and Maura Rockcastle, co-founders and principals of TEN x TEN Studio, a transdisciplinary landscape architecture and urban design practice based in Minneapolis, will present the 2022 Richard F. Hansen Lecture in Architecture at Iowa State University.

Their public lecture, “Ways of Knowing,” will be at 5:30 p.m. Friday, March 25, in Kocimski Auditorium, room 101 College of Design.

Altheimer and Rockcastle co-founded TEN x TEN in 2015 to capitalize on creative alliances among design fields and collaborate with clients on immersive, resilient landscapes that adapt to social, economic and environmental change.

“Merging art and science, our process challenges norms of the landscape architecture profession. We ask: What do you see? How can we document, investigate and experiment to build relationships and deepen our ways of knowing? How can we apply various modes of seeing and making to discover the magic latent in a site?” Altheimer and Rockcastle said.

“We explore spaces, materials and ecologies at all scales, and elevate the everyday human experience through a deep respect for the authenticity of people, culture and ecology.”

Richard F. Hansen Prize

The duo will also serve as guest jurors for the Richard F. Hansen Prize, established in 2004 by Iowa State alumni Richard F. and Barbara Hansen and awarded annually to the winner(s) of a design competition held in conjunction with the lecture.

Five student teams will present projects completed in the fall 2021 architecture third-year studio courses:

  • “Capstone Collective” by Pierre Mure-Ravaud and Connor Shanahan
    Studio instructor: Anna Aversing, associate professor of practice
  • “Waterworks Amphitheater” by Evan Corkery and Austin Meoni
    Studio instructor: Andrew Ballard, associate professor of practice
  • “Campus Collective” by Jacob Becker, Ryan Meyers and Emily Preston
    Studio instructors: Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia, associate professors
  • “Retrouvailles” by Ben Lyons, Saad Ouazzani Taibi and Tim Zhjange
    Studio instructors: Nathan Griffith and Nick Lindsley, associate professors of practice
  • “reAWAKEN” by Kyle Guenther, Armin Hasancevic and Mckenna VanDenTop
    Studio instructor: Kevin Lair, assistant teaching professor

Presentations will be from 1–3 p.m. Friday in the Hansen Exchange, upper-level center space in the College of Design’s King Pavilion. Serving on the jury with Altheimer and Rockcastle will be Deborah Hauptmann, chair of the Department of Architecture. Awards will be announced at the beginning of the lecture at 5:30 p.m.

About the speakers

Altheimer has led the planning and execution of significant cultural, community and campus projects across the United States. Some of his current projects include 38th and Chicago Re-Envisioning, Minnesota Zoo Treetop Trail and Lakewood Cemetery Welcome Gardens + Arboretum.

He has taught and lectured nationally across the disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture. He was a 2014-2015 Cleveland Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design and the 2013 Rome Prize Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome, where he studied infrastructure and myth in contemporary Rome.

Altheimer previously was an associate at Coen+Partners and the director of landscape architecture at HGA. His work has won awards from the American Institute of Architects and American Society of Landscape Architects, U.S. General Services Administration and Graham Foundation. He holds a bachelor of science in architectural studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a master of architecture and master of landscape architecture from the University of Virginia.

Rockcastle has extensive experience working on large-scale projects, managing and navigating stakeholder groups and complex public processes. Her professional experience is focused on cultural, institutional and public-realm projects, including the High Line Section 1, Times Square Reconstruction and Historic Fort Snelling Revitalization. Her work spans many scales of landscape, from 4,500-acre parks to 5-acre urban plazas to small collaborative art installations.

Rockcastle previously was an associate for James Corner Field Operations and the Landscape Discipline Leader at Snøhetta. She has taught design studios at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Yale School of Architecture and the University of Minnesota College of Design.

She holds a bachelor of fine arts from Cornell University and an MLA from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was awarded the Ian McHarg Prize for Excellence in Ecological Design, an ASLA Certificate of Honor and the Van Alen Traveling Fellowship.

Contacts

Firat Erdim, Architecture, 515-294-8256, firat@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, College of Design Communications, 515-294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

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