Futures Takes Flight - Alworth Scholarship

Hometown: Two Harbors

High School: Two Harbors H.S.

College: Iowa State University (master's)

Field of Study: Architecture

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Computer Case Fabrication
Roma camp Postcards

“I have found that the busier I am, the more energy I have,” said Keihly Moore when asked how she keeps up with her busy life. And it certainly is all about energy with Moore, a 2004 Two Harbors High School graduate now studying architecture at Iowa State University. With great academic dedication and tremendous passion, she is striving to bring sustainable design to the forefront, while changing ideas about the intrinsic power of buildings along the way.

She believes strongly that design should be affordable and accessible to everyone.

According to Moore, architects today design for only two percent of the population. Which means our cities and homes are not formed by our own needs and desires, but are instead dictated to us by contractors and developers. This is something Moore is looking to change. She believes strongly that design should be affordable and accessible to everyone. She has taken steps already to do this during her time in ISU’s five-year Masters Program. As a member of Freedom by Design, a part of the American Institute of Architecture Students, Moore and others from ISU worked in Ames, Iowa to make more accessible housing for people with disabilities.

In Oakland, Iowa she worked with two other students and four architects to revitalize the town’s Main Street, giving her a better understanding of the current issues surrounding civic planning. She says she never felt as good as she did when she finished the project in Oakland. The importance of it for her was being able to work with people who truly cared about the project; in this case a town, which needed the help of a young and creative mind. Buildings are about power, she says. When it comes to transforming the authoritarian structures of architecture, Moore’s motto is: “if you can’t beat them, join them—and change them from the inside out.”

During a recent trip to China, she saw how the same offices could adapt to the surroundings and use less energy.

Power is not only a philosophical concept to Moore, it is also a physical struggle. She has learned that office buildings use 50% of America’s energy. During a recent trip to China, she saw how the same offices could adapt to the surroundings and use less energy. The rooftops in China, which she will willingly show you in her travel photos, are covered in solar panels and water heaters. Workers do not sit all day in the constant chill of air conditioning, but instead open windows. Street lights store energy while the sun is shining to light up the night.

Moore has been interested in the environment since childhood. For many years she lived a few blocks from Lake Superior. Her mother worked for the Department of Natural Resources, and is now a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Moore’s love of the outdoors has motivated her to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to the growing energycrisis and humans’ ill effect on the health of the planet.

“We aren’t very aware or perceptive of our environment,” Moore says. “Technology makes it so we don’t have to be.” An increased consciousness is what Moore is trying to produce through her studies. She believes that creativity with materials will give us better options, which can have a major pay-off in the end. Her ideas start small.

She believes that creativity with materials will give us better options, which can have a major pay-off in the end.

After completing a required freshman building project, Moore discovered that all of the wood used for the 60 students’ projects would either be burned or thrown away. She saw these materials as an opportunity and built a bookshelf. It not only put the waste to use, it was also functional and beautiful.

In August of 2006, Moore’s friend asked her to work on a competition to build a chair of 75 percent recycled materials. The two college students searched the campus and discovered an abundance of plastic bottles and pizza boxes. The materials came to reflect the environment when student waste was transformed into a functional dorm room chair.

Shocked by the number of bottles she and her friend found, Moore was inspired to take the project a step further and make a little noise about the waste on campus. She and other students from Architecture for Humanity built a five story “sock,” composed of bicycle tire rims and wire mesh to collect bottles and cans in the College of Design. Students were able to drop empty bottles and cans from all levels of the school and through an opening at the top. The sound of success was not only the more than 6,000 bottles and cans collected in the first week; but in December of 2006 Moore and AFH made a name for themselves on National Public Radio’s Sound Clip feature when Moore captured the musical sound of bottles and cans rushing down the structure. And Moore’s work made an impact. Just a few days after the clip played on NPR, a man from North Carolina emailed her seeking suggestions for setting up a similar recycling system in his home.

Moore takes classes in several different disciplines and uses it in architecture. She believes that architecture encompasses everything, and she is making sure that she does as well. Moore was a stand out student in high school, described as one of the top in her class by her math teacher. Even with this success she recalls that when she arrived at ISU she knew nothing about architecture.

Her studies, she admits, take a lot of time and effort. But, she says “it’s boring if you don’t put energy into it.”

But now through close relationships with her professors—she has five of their numbers in her cell phone—and the influence of the 60 other students in the architecture school, she is not only learning the practices of the art but also changing it to reflect her own values and experience. Design, she says, has no answers at the end of the day and is dependant on continuous change and improvement. Her studies, she admits, take a lot of time and effort. But, she says “it’s boring if you don’t put energy into it.”