Sioux Falls, SD (2023)
The 10th & 11th Street viaducts in Downtown Sioux Falls will change hands from state to city in the next decade. With that comes an opportunity. The Friends & Citizens studio dug in.
Friends & Citizens is an AIA-award-winning, summer-long design studio that integrates the academic and professional worlds of architecture for a group of interns. Each summer, CO-OP oversees a handful of students from various disciplines, offering them the tools and guidance necessary to complete a theoretical design project in addition to some practical daily work. On the theoretical side, the students interact with various entities – including local governments and business owners, design professionals, and the general public – as they design a conceptual solution to a real-world problem in a local community. The students develop their design skills, take part in public policy discussions, learn smart and sustainable land use and urban planning strategies, and most importantly, help build vibrant communities. At the end of the summer, they present their research and design publicly with the hopes of bringing the project to life down the road.
Throughout the summer of 2023, four students from South Dakota State University – Cheyenne Miller, James Van Westen, Kelsey Gustaf, and Shea Bailey – considered how the 10th and 11th Street viaducts in Downtown Sioux Falls could be repurposed to better connect two disparate sections of downtown. Currently, the bridges move one-way traffic in to (10th) or out of (11th) downtown. The interns proposed replacing the 10th Street viaduct with a pedestrian bridge. Our friends at Fresh Produce helped brand the bridge as The 89 – a callback to the year the original viaducts were built. 1889, that is.
The 89 would feature structural coverage and lots of engaging interior programming, including a greenhouse, market, bar/restaurant, and coffee shop. We think it’d boost walkability and be a hit in Downtown Sioux Falls. Others agree.
p.s. When you’ve seen enough here, you can dive into Friends & Citizens projects from previous years at the bottom of this page.
