December 2005 Summary

RDG Wins Two National Design Awards

RDG's Vision For Clear Lake, Iowa, Wins Outstanding Plan Award

RDG Wins Two National Design Awards

Iowa State University Football Training Facility, and Milwaukee School of Engineering Kern Center, recognized for Design Excellence.

Athletic Business Magazine recently selected the Iowa State University Bergstrom Indoor Training Facility and the Kern Center at Milwaukee School of Engineering to receive their distinguished Facility of Merit Award. Representatives from the Sports Studio at RDG Planning & Design were honored at Athletic Business' annual national conference in Orlando, Florida, December 2, 2005. Now in its 25th year, this annual awards program recognizes architects, consultants, and facility owners and managers for their efforts planning, financing, designing and operating athletic recreation and wellness facilities that set high standards for design and functionality. The Kern Center and the Bergstrom Training Facility were two of ten winners chosen from a group of 92 projects, designed and built across the nation. The Kern Center and the Bergstrom Training Facility are shining examples of high design and functionality, and they are featured in the December 2005 issue of Athletic Business.

Kern Center: RDG was the Design Architect for the 210,000 GSF Kern Center, challenged to create a contextual, signature icon for MSOE that integrates cutting edge technology, total personal wellness, and dynamic user appropriate imagery. The new five level facility houses a 1,200-seat spectator arena, 1,600-seat hockey arena, 3-court multipurpose fieldhouse, 8,000 SF of fitness and weights, 4,000 SF wrestling room, 160-meter elevated running track, and numerous other amenities and support space. RDG worked closely with Uihlein-Wilson Architects of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was the Architect-of Record.

Bergstrom Training Facility: Designed by RDG and constructed adjacent to Jack Trice Stadium, this facility serves all adjacent football and athletic department facilities. As a primary component of the plan, the synthetic turf practice field (a full size NCAA football field) dominates the building design in comparison to other building functions. The exterior structural system, spans the length of the building, and is designed to minimize the visual impact of the large volume on the nearby athletic complex and residential neighborhood. This is one of the first indoor football facilities in the nation to integrate a complete indirect lighting system alleviating distracting hot-spots on the ceiling for aerial play. 360 Architecture, Kansas City, MO, served as programming consultant.

back to top ^

RDG's Vision For Clear Lake, Iowa, Wins Outstanding Plan Award

APA Honors Downtown Plan for Town of 8,000

OMAHA, Nebr.--A downtown development plan for Clear Lake, Iowa--a lakeside community of 8,000 in the north central part of the state--won the Iowa American Planning Association's 2005 Outstanding Plan Award. RDG Planning and Design, the Omaha- and Des Moines-based firm that developed the Clear Lake plan, accepted the award October 20 at the Iowa APA/American Society of Landscape Architects joint conference in Des Moines.

Marty Shukert, RDG's principal planner and a former Omaha planning director, led the Clear Lake project, a collaboration of landscape architecture and community planning personnel in RDG's Omaha and Des Moines offices. Shukert is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, APA's professional institute.

Awards are judged on their originality, innovation, transferability to other communities, quality, comprehensiveness, public participation, effectiveness, and results, explains RDG planner Gary Lozano. "The test of a good plan is its ability to bring about positive reactions in the private market," adds Cory Scott, also a planner at RDG, "[and] to set positive forces in motion." In this case, says Scott, the RDG plan involved the entire community in setting and achieving goals, in part building on Clear Lake's "brand" as a "gentle resort." Clear Lake's population almost doubles in size during the summer, when visitors and summer residents fill local inns and lakeshore cottages.

RDG Planning & Design offers professional services in architecture, landscape architecture, interior and lighting design, strategic planning, urban and comprehensive planning, and graphic design. RDG and its predecessor companies have been serving clients since 1965. The firm currently has active projects in more than 25 states.

APA is a nonprofit public-interest and research organization committed to urban, suburban, regional, and rural planning.

back to top ^

< return to News & Press Release main page