RDG in the Media: Designs for Post-Industrial Heritage Transformation
ArchDaily explores how post-industrial landscapes, including Iowa’s High Trestle Trail Bridge, can spark economic growth and cultural renewal.
Post-industrial sites — abandoned mills, rusting smokestacks, forgotten factories — often symbolize economic decline. But with thoughtful design, these landscapes can become powerful spaces of renewal. Layered with environmental, cultural and historical significance, they offer opportunities for creative reinvention. In a recent article, ArchDaily explores four strategies for transforming these complex sites: heritage preservation, ecological remediation, participatory cultural programming and adaptive reuse.
When industry departs from rural communities, it often takes with it the social and economic systems that once sustained them. This raises a crucial question: how can these places once again support vibrant public life? In Madrid, Iowa, the High Trestle Trail Bridge, designed in collaboration with RDG, offers a compelling answer. Through cultural programming, also known as placemaking, the bridge reactivates the landscape as a destination for connection and discovery.
Spanning more than half a mile across the Des Moines River Valley, the High Trestle Trail Bridge is the fifth-longest pedestrian and bicycle bridge in the United States. It serves as a critical connector, linking more than 600 miles of trail throughout central Iowa. RDG’s design honors the area’s coal mining legacy through a series of sculptural steel cribs that echo the form of mine shafts, abstracted to create an immersive experience of movement through time and geology.
Since its completion, the bridge has become a regional destination, drawing 15,000 to 20,000 visitors each month. This influx of activity has spurred economic revitalization, including the opening of new restaurants, historic building renovations and a renewed sense of vibrancy in the surrounding communities.