
The National Tile Contractors Association (of America) awarded the ‘River of Life Mosaic’ Best Mosaic Installation at it’s annual award ceremony in Las Vegas 2011. The mosaic was commissioned for the University of Iowa’s new sports centre in Iowa City. In this article I look at the process of designing the Iowa River of Life Mosaic.
Achieving a successful design for this commission involved integrating the design into the architecture of the building and reflecting the history of the area together with the aspirations of the Health and Wellbeing Centre. Here I look at how those disparate elements were pulled together to form a successful design solution. Designing the Iowa River of Life Mosaic… Designing the Iowa River of life Mosaic: One of the things that made a big impression on me during my first trip to Iowa City was the relationship with the river. In particular the devastation of recent flooding. In thinking about the concept of Wellbeing I was captivated by the idea of the river and the vision of wellbeing as a path through our lives, rather than just a state of being at a single moment in time. This came together in the vision of The River of Life. The idea also connected well with the aquatic focus of the CRWC centre. Designing the Iowa River of Life Mosaic was quite a journey. The River symbolising life is an ancient image connecting our most ancient cultures. The source of the river symbolising birth and the start of life’s journey, the path to enlightenment. The river is the bringer of life and purification.
Integrating design in architecture.
RDGUSA architects designed the new state of the art building to house the University of Iowa‘s new Campus Recreation and Wellbeing Centre. The 215,000 square foot building stacks the various sports and recreation activities and features a large open foyer area with vertical openings through the building, giving great space and views through. I identified this as the optimum site for the work with it’s great open aspect and opportunities to view the work from several floors above.
Seeing the pattern of local culture embedded in the landscape
The building itself was little more than a hole in the ground on my first visit so my research concentrated on the geography and history of the area. I’ve always felt that mosaics have a strong connection with textiles. Looking at the textiles of the Indigenous Iowa people, the distinctive Amish quilt works of the area and the local basket weaving tradition began to coalesce with the geography of patchwork fields and the meandering river of Iowa.
Distilling the process of inspiration
With so much inspiration and information as a starting point I found myself almost overwhelmed. My initial design roughs became more and more over blown until eventually I reached a halt with a design that was just too much. I knew I had to somehow distill what I had into a more appropriate design for this new building.



The final design
Designing the Iowa River of life Mosaic: The final ‘River of Life’ design for me is very symbolic. It begins with birth, at the top of the mosaic as you enter the space, A spiral emerging. I see the river itself as comprised of life lines. The construction of the mosaic river as interweaving lines of tesserae each represent a life. These life lines all emerge from the birth spiral and trace their journey through life.

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