At NM, sketching is an integral part of our daily lives. Architect Eric Neuhaus’ AIA Iowa award winning project titled “93|21” provided an outlet from the digital architecture environment and a way to create outside the office. Throughout 20 months with temperature ranges from 93 degrees to 21 degrees, he sketched the progress of the new Krause Gateway Center in downtown Des Moines, resulting in a compilation of sketches showing the evolution of the built environment.
Take a peek inside Eric’s sketchbook and read more about his project below.
“93|21” takes grand prize at AIA Iowa’s fourth-annual Emerging Professionals Competition
By: Jennifer Peters
As published in Iowa Architect Magazine, Winter 2019
One of the most defining characteristics of architects and design professionals is their desire to create. Architecture and design touch and engage every facet of their lives, and so it is no surprise that many spend hours creating outside the office. The American Institute of Architects, Iowa Chapter (AIA Iowa) Emerging Professionals Committee is proud to host eh Emerging Professionals Competition each year, featuring the work of architecture students, architectural interns, and architects licensed 10 years of fewer to provide an outlet and recognition for what are often out-of-office pursuits. For the past four years, the competition has hosted many types of work, including sculpture, 3D printing, fine art, and woodworking.
This year, Eric Neuhaus, AIA, architectural intern at Neumann Monson Architects, took home the $300 grand prize with his fine art piece titled “93|21.” “I think the EP competition is a great vehicle for enabling architects and designers across the state to share their passions – whether they lie within design or another discipline,” Neuhaus says. “The entries over the last couple of years have inspired and provided me with a sense of energy to investigate something of my own. Hopefully this year’s batch of entries does the same thing and will continue to ignite a desire for others to display their abilities.”
Neuhaus began “93|21” as a “lunch-hour activity and an escape from the monotonous pixel pushing of today’s digital world, he says. His escape led from one sketch to another on a near monthly basis. The title references the range in temperatures he experienced through the 20-month duration of creation.
“With buildings considered such a permanent fixture upon completion, the construction phase provides an ephemeral quality in which the building will only exist in a particular state for a moment in time,” he says.
Congratulations to Eric Neuhaus and runners up Tyler Jessen with “Rippling Waters,” and Aniket Nagdive with “Mirage: Reconstructed Space.”