2019 Design in the Hills – Rapid City

In 2019, Rapid City made its biennial appearance as the host of Design in the Hills. Because of the numerous technologically innovative projects recently completed in Rapid City, the theme of 2019 was “Innovation RC.” The Design in the Hills Committee also decided to try something new in 2019 – a Call for Submissions throughout the region for built works and current research in the field of design innovation.

2018 Design in the Hills – Custer

Our 2018 Design in the Hills event took us to the southern hills of Custer. Our theme that year centered around the concept of New Ruralism. New Ruralism can be described as an evolving rural planning approach rooted in respect for cultural heritage and empowerment of residents to actively participate in shaping their own environment. The approach focuses on making rural areas thriving, sustainable places to live and work. Custer possesses a great wealth of cultural resources which our event focused on.

2017 Design in the Hills – Rapid City

The Design in the Hills 2017 theme was Adaptations. The committee set out to find exciting projects and planning efforts in the Rapid City community that were examples of architectural adaptations. The first day started with a morning outing on the infamous ‘Da Bus’ and ended with a walking tour through the East of 5th street corridor of downtown Rapid City. The first stop on ‘Da Bus’ was at the Bridger Steel plant in Blackhawk. The tour was enlightening to the attendees as they learned about the process of manufacturing metal panels.

2016 Design in the Hills – Lead

The Design in the Hills 2016 theme was Reclamation. Artist Dale Lamphere helped us kick off the 2016 event with a site visit to the remote site east of Rapid City where he was designing, constructing and assembling the now-famous Dignity sculpture. The sculpture of a Native American woman holding a star quilt is 50 feet high, 16 feet deep and 32 feet wide and has more than 100 blue diamond shapes in the quilt that were originally designed to move in the wind. The sculpture now stands on a hill overlooking the Missouri River off of Interstate 90 near Chamberlain, SD.

2015 Design in the Hills – Sturgis & Spearfish

2015 Design in the Hills highlighted Collaboration starting with a public-private partnership in Sturgis between Harley-Davidson and the City of Sturgis on Harley-Davidson Rally Point Plaza. Landscape architect Eirik Heikes gave the group a tour of the site and spoke about the partnership to conceive and construct the newest public space in Sturgis.