OFFICE SPACE
Designing workplaces for the way we work
TOUR PREVIEW
Plan your Homes by Architects weekend LIGHT THERAPY IN KENZO TANGE’S MCAD BUILDING TRAVAIL KITCHEN AND AMUSEMENTS’ VERY BIG YEAR
SEP|OCT 19 $3.95 architecturemn.com
Silver Screen Allianz Field lights up St. Paul
INTERIORS DIRECTORY
Architecture MN, the primary public outreach tool of the American Institute of Architects Minnesota, is published to inform the public about architecture designed by AIA Minnesota members and to communicate the spirit and value of quality architecture to both the public and the membership.
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HOMES BY ARCHITECTS TOUR
Architecture MN is a publication of The American Institute of Architects Minnesota architecturemn.com
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Features 23 Workplaces That Work “In almost everything we do, we’re designing flexibility and choices into our projects,” says one of the architects interviewed in our showcase of leading-edge work environments. “The aim is for each and every employee to feel empowered in their work—to be able to deliver to their highest potential.” ON THE COVER Allianz Field St. Paul, Minnesota Modern stadiums often look their best from a distance—and also from a slightly elevated perspective. Brooklyn-based architectural photographer James Ewing shot this dramatic image of Allianz Field from the roof of a small building across Snelling Avenue.
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High Fashion: Kickernick Building page 24 By Joel Hoekstra
Survey Says: Perkins and Will’s Minneapolis Studio page 30 By Christopher Hudson
34 Homes by Architects
Tour 2019
By Linda Mack
Our annual preview of the popular September tour, complete with a visit to the smallest residence on the circuit— a 640-square-foot accessory dwelling unit that’s big on natural light and contemporary design.
42 Sight & Sound By Bruce N. Wright
With its shimmering fabric enclosure, Northern Lights–inspired LED shows, and Wonderwall of roaring fans, Allianz Field offers up a sensory experience unlike that of any other stadium in the Upper Midwest.
SIGHT & SOUND
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WORKPLACES
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THAT WORK
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Departments & Directories 9
EDITOR’S NOTE
17 FAST FORWARD
13 CULTURE CRAWL
BY ANN MAYHEW The African American Interpretive Center of Minnesota brings the stories of three pioneering black builders to Mill City Museum.
14 INSPIRATION
BY AMY GOETZMAN PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC MUELLER “The places that feed my soul tend to be art museums or in nature,” says MSR designer Traci Lesneski. The two environments combine in Kenzo Tange’s MCAD and Mia buildings.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Ryan Companies break ground on Eleven, a 41-story residential tower in Minneapolis’ Mill District.
88 PLACE
BY AMY GOETZMAN A resourceful architect designs and builds a playful backyard design studio for his young family.
18 TOWN TALK
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86 CREDITS
BY JOEL HOEKSTRA For the chef-owners of Travail Kitchen and Amusements, 2019 is the Year of Architecture, in three courses.
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DIRECTORIES OF INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN FIRMS
87 ADVERTISING INDEX
BY SHERI HANSEN A conversation with LHB CEO Rick Carter on the levels of energy performance in the 21st Century Development matrix.
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every City Lakes house has a story. (and bruce birkeland knows it.)
Over 1,000 homes sold. $1 Billion dollars in sales—including more luxury homes sold in the Minneapolis Lakes area than any other Realtor. For 30 years, Bruce Birkeland has been bringing home sellers and buyers together with endless enthusiasm, absolute integrity, and unmistakable success.
EDITOR’S NOTE
With Feeling ERIC MUELLER
My ears always perk up when I hear that a residential architect is designing a new home or addition for a commercial architect. Does the design process unfold any differently, I wonder, when the client is an architect? Do all the design skills at the table mean that the project is likely to have a memorable outcome? Or can it lead to a case of too many cooks in the kitchen? Home 10 on this year’s Homes by Architects Tour (page 34) paired owners David and Barbara Eijadi with Peterssen/Keller Architecture. David is a retired architect, and I visited him to get a tour of the house—an inviting modern home overlooking West River Parkway in South Minneapolis—as well as some insight on the architect-architect working relationship. It turns out the project was as collaborative as you might think, with David having fairly clear ideas for some of the major components of the design, including the main-level floor plan, and Peterssen/Keller developing those ideas and others into a light-filled home designed to allow the Eijadis to age in place. Along the way, David drew on his knowledge and experience— especially his expertise in daylighting and natural ventilation. Barbara, a book artist, brought an exacting eye for detail.
INTERACT & CONNECT
Residential design panel at Room & Board architecturemn.com/events
Homes by Architects Tour homesbyarchitects.org
Yale University design travel on Instagram
But the Eijadis were also like any other people who pour their heart and soul into a dream home. They wanted more than just a pleasing arrangement of comfortable living spaces. For David, that something more was a feeling. “Last year, a grade-school student in Connecticut asked me where an architect’s ideas come from,” David recalled during my visit. “I told her that, more often than not, we feel before we think. And then, to explain ourselves, we tell stories. “Early on in the project, I explained the feeling I was after by referencing memories of visiting medieval towns in Europe, where every passageway was different and circulation was bent, hiding nearby things from view,” he continued. “I love sensing the flow of space around me and seeing it disappear around corners, and I think we succeeded in re-creating elements of that experience in this house. Oddly, once Barb and I moved in, I began to think more of the peek-aboo screen on the original Guthrie Theater, which opened and closed sightlines as you walked by. I’ll never know which was the greater influence. But we all knew the feeling we were after.” I hope you make the time for the September tour. Each of the 13 homes features a unique set of design solutions, and each strikes a special chord.
#archmnmagnewhaven2019
@archmnmag
Christopher Hudson, Hon. AIAMN hudson@aia-mn.org
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INSPIRATION
“It’s so important to see how Tange used light and view. Each window frames a sculpture or garden. Light tubes bring a sense of the sky into spaces.”
Light Therapy Designer Traci Lesneski loves the light and the layers in Kenzo Tange’s MCAD and Mia buildings BY AMY GOETZMAN | PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC MUELLER
When Architecture MN invited MSR Design principal Traci Lesneski, Assoc. AIA, to participate in our Inspiration series, she said it sounded like fun—and then added the selection of a space that inspires her to her lengthy to-do list. For Lesneski, spring 2019 seemed like an airportsof-the-world flipbook as she jetted to various speaking engagements and client meetings. Rush, rush, rush. Then she pressed pause. “I realized that I wanted to choose someplace quiet and contemplative,” she says. “The places that feed my soul tend to be art museums or in nature.”
In Mia’s soaring Tange wing, visitors can experience all the levels of the addition at once and take in a panoramic view of the downtown skyline to the north. The atrium views in MCAD’s Main Building aren’t quite so dramatic, but the circulation spaces offer numerous encounters with art on display—and art in progress. “Walking by and seeing someone else’s making process can be so inspiring,” says Lesneski. She applies this inspiration to her own work, which includes academic buildings for emerging artists and designers, and places for hands-on exploration in the arts.
It’s no surprise, then, that Lesneski settled on a pairing of related interiors on a leafy campus shared by two noted arts organizations: The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Mia is a deep vault of humanity’s creative output, including the modern art that is Lesneski’s particular jam, and MCAD is a bustling incubator of artists working in a wide variety of media. The two share a tranquil pocket park and a skyway. Both also boast a modern, white-glazed-brick building by renowned Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. And both Tange structures feature a skylit, multilevel atrium that Lesneski loves to spend time in.
She also appreciates the unique atmosphere that Tange’s light-filled, multilevel interiors create. “He shaped these volumes and then added a textural quality with a simple, beautiful glazed brick,” says Lesneski. “The layering of the atrium spaces in both buildings—and the transparent way those layers connect to each other—draws you in and invites exploration.”
“Mia’s neoclassical building is so beloved and has such a stately presence,” says Lesneski of the 1915 Beaux Arts landmark to which the 1974 Tange addition attaches. “When plans for the expansion were announced, I imagine people were worried that Tange would screw it up.” It’s true; change is hard, and people are often resistant to the new thing. But Tange didn’t screw it up. His quiet masterpieces are the perfect complement to their older neighbor, and today they are recognized as timeless examples of midcentury simplicity.
One day at MCAD, Lesneski observed the passage of time as light moved and changed across a brick wall. “It’s so important to see how Tange used light and view,” she says. “Each window frames a sculpture or garden. Light tubes bring a sense of the sky into spaces. That infusion of light and nature has got to be felt on some level by the students and faculty.” Curious about whether this was true, she asked a few people in the building what they thought of it. Some of them, to her surprise, had never noticed it. “I suppose it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day and not be conscious of your surroundings,” she says. “Or perhaps that is the building’s success—the fact that it doesn’t get in the way of what is most important for MCAD: the art, and the making of art.” So she chatted with several students about the design of the building, and they looked around with fresh eyes. And then they saw it. “Wow,” said one. “It is pretty great.” AMN
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By Joel Hoekstra Photograph by Chad Holder
Some meals are served in courses. Others come in a rush with loaded platters, bubbling pots, brimming bowls, and hot plates delivered to the table all at once—a feat of kitchen multitasking. The chef-owners of Travail Kitchen and Amusements excel at both, but their current foray into space-making definitely resembles the latter more than the former. This fall, the trio behind the business—Mike Brown, Bob Gerken, and James Winberg—will move into a new home, a two-story, glass-and-steel box
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located a stone’s throw from the site in downtown Robbinsdale where they opened their original restaurant in 2010. The new building, designed by Peterssen/Keller Architecture, will be the third and most sophisticated iteration of the renowned restaurant. “Travail is a progressive concept. Its approach to food changes and evolves,” says Winberg. “As it changes, it outgrows buildings. We outgrew our original building and then a second one. Mentally, physically, and conceptually, we were ready for a new space.”
TOWN TALK Left to right: Bob Gerken, James Winberg, and Mike Brown enjoy a lighter moment at the Travail Kitchen and Amusements construction site in downtown Robbinsdale in May.
FULL PLATE The Travail Kitchen and Amusements team turns to three Twin Cities architecture firms to design a flagship restaurant, a pizza place, and a barbecue joint
Meanwhile, the old Travail space has been remodeled as the new home for the trio’s second endeavor, the wildly popular Pig Ate My Pizza. The clean, modern space, detailed with some steampunk fixtures and a hint of porcine pink lighting, was designed by RoehrSchmitt Architecture and built on a tight budget. Mike Brown hired an Amish carpenter to design the tables and furniture in the dining room, and the open kitchen is typical of Travail endeavors—unfettered sightlines turn the cooking into theater. As if two building projects weren’t enough, the Travail team also opened a third concept in a stand-alone storefront in northeast Minneapolis this past spring. Minnesota BBQ Co. serves up brisket, duck, chicken, sausage, and more in a spartan-yet-comfy space designed by Joy Martin Architecture. Why juggle three projects at a time? “We thought, ‘Do we
want to actually do this, or do we want to play it safe?’” says Gerken. “The answer was easy.” The new Travail will be unlike anything ever built on Broadway Avenue in Robbinsdale. But Brown says the chef-owners never seriously considered moving to another place. “We’ve built relationships here,” he says. “We built a family—with employees, customers, the city.” Travail’s cooking has always been surprising, delighting diners with unexpected food and drink prepared tableside with theatrical flair. The team’s three building concepts all capitalize on that idea: There’s no fourth wall between the chefs and patrons in any of the projects. You can watch your meal get made from start to finish; that’s the fun of it.
When the new flagship restaurant opens in September, the Travail team will finally have a stage designed for the kind of culinary spectacle they love to present. Customers will enter through a wall covered with ivy. Knives will hang above them in an alcove. On some nights, patrons will be asked to reach into a small hole in an interior wall, where a mysterious morsel will be placed in their hand. Brown says he was overwhelmed when he saw the plans for the building. “All I could think was, ‘This is going to be ours?’” he says. “It was like a waiter delivering a dish you never thought you could afford to taste. It’ll be an amazing moment when the keys are handed over.” AMN
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Interiors: Historic Studio | Architect: Murphy & Co. Design Builder: JN Built | Photography: Spacecrafting
Loewen Window Center 6011 Culligan Way Minnetonka, MN
Phone: 651.788.3346 Fax: 952.666.5562 www.synergy-trt.com
loewen.com
Kickernick Building Page 24 Perkins and Will’s Minneapolis studio Page 30
Workplaces that really work In the following pages, Architecture MN tours the transformation of an historic commercial building into dynamic social spaces for office tenants, and revisits an award-winning, free-address design studio that recently underwent a comprehensive workplace survey to measure employee experience.
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High Fashion
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Studio BV refreshes the interiors of an old garment-making factory with nods to the structure’s history
Studio BV removed walls inside the main entry to create a more spacious and inviting lobby. Inventive screens and open-shelving partitions break the common area into a series of smaller moments.
BY JOEL HOEKSTRA MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
WORKPLACES THAT WORK
The Kickernick Building has stood at the corner of First Avenue North and Fifth Street North for nearly 125 years.
Among the first skyscrapers erected in Minneapolis was the Kickernick Building. Built in 1896, the red-brick-and-timber Renaissance Revival structure towered over the corner of First Avenue North and Fifth Street, enthralling passersby. Its height? Seven stories tall. The building originally housed a boot and shoe company. But it soon became the headquarters of Kickernick, a maker of women’s lingerie and undergarments (including those designed for the “sports-loving woman of today,” according to a 1930s advertisement). Both businesses were female-owned and employed thousands of women over the decades. Garment-making was one of the few professions open to women in the first half of the 20th century.
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Survey Says
The Minneapolis office of global architecture firm Perkins and Will measures the success of its 2016 move to a free-address studio environment
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WORKPLACES THAT WORK
BY CHRISTOPHER HUDSON | PHOTOGRAPHY BY COREY GAFFER
In January 2016, Perkins and Will’s Minneapolis studio made two big moves in one: from the historic Essex Building to the modern IDS Center, and from assigned workstations to a mobile workplace for all 72 of its employees. While no relocation is easy, the shift to free address was the more seismic change. Perkins and Will was the first—and is still the only—large architecture studio in Minnesota to make that leap. And it hasn’t looked back.
“Our old studio didn’t fit with how we work as architects and designers,” says Tony Layne, AIA, managing director of the Minneapolis studio. “We work on multiple teams, with multiple people. We needed a space that supports that.”
Space Laboratory
“There was also a sense of wanting to have more understanding of what our clients are experiencing in these environments,” adds Lisa Pool, the studio’s director of planning and strategies. “We knew it would give us more awareness and understanding of how mobility can be done well.” David Dimond, FAIA, design director of the Minneapolis office, sees the studio’s embrace of unassigned workspace in a larger cultural context. “In almost everything we do, whether it’s higher education or healthcare or workplace, we’re designing flexibility and choices into our projects,” he explains. “The aim is for each and every employee to feel empowered in their work—to be able to deliver to their highest potential.” Layne, Pool, and Dimond sat down with Architecture MN to look back on the studio’s first three years in a fully free-address environment— and to share the results of a comprehensive workplace survey that measured employees’ experience in a wide array of areas.
Adaptability was paramount in Perkins and Will’s shift to a mobile studio, so the firm designed its 9,800-square-foot space to have relatively few fixed elements. Four freestanding, glass-box meeting rooms, a kitchenette backed by four conversation booths, and a large conference room are the only immovable objects. Everything else can be picked up or rolled on casters to a new location. The conference room, too, is highly adaptable: A glass-paneled garage door allows it to open onto an airy café for events and office-wide meetings.
“In almost everything we do, whether it’s higher education or healthcare or workplace, we’re designing flexibility and choices into our projects. The aim is for each and every employee to feel empowered in their work— to be able to deliver to their highest potential.”
“We worked hard to engage our entire team in the process,” says Layne. “We held a daylong workshop over here [before the move], committed to regular communication on what was happening, and provided ample opportunities for staff to give feedback, even on the design. I think everybody felt like we were building a new home together. “The other key to our success was, we went all-in on the change to free address,” Layne continues. “We said, ‘We’re doing this together, and we’re going to succeed or fail together.’”
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#6
Homes by ARCHITECTS
SPACECRAFTING
2019 TOUR PREVIEW
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A modern home (#6) on a hilly lot blends into the fabric of an established Wayzata neighborhood. A cottage-style home (#4, opposite) on the banks of Carson Bay on Lake Minnetonka features a range of wellness spaces. A remodel and expansion of a 1949 log-cabin residence (#8, opposite) both preserves and modernizes the home’s unique character.
RENDERING COURTESY OF SWAN ARCHITECTURE RYAN SIEMERS
#4
Experience design ideas for living in a variety of styles and settings SEPTEMBER 21 & 22, 2019 | homesbyarchitects.org
#8
RYAN SIEMERS
STEVE HENKE STUDIO
AIA MINNESOTA’S 12TH ANNUAL HOME TOUR SHOWCASES 13 ARCHITECT-DESIGNED HOUSES
The tour stretches from Independence through the Twin Cities to Marine on St. Croix, and the homes range in size, vintage, and setting—from tiny to large, 19th-century to 21st-century, and urban to prairie. In other words, there’s inspiration for every design interest. Architecture MN previews the tour by taking readers inside House #9— a light-filled, 640-square-foot accessory dwelling unit—in the pages that follow.
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SIGHT &
SOUND INSIDE AND OUT, ALLIANZ FIELD OFFERS FANS A WORLD-CLASS SENSORY EXPERIENCE OF MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
BY BRUCE N. WRIGHT
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At night, Allianz Field, the new home of the Minnesota United FC, hovers above Interstate 94 like a glowing UFO. In daylight, its shimmering screen makes an equally commanding impression. Whatever time of day and from whichever direction you approach the newest Major League Soccer stadium, you can be sure the taut fabric that wraps the playing field will not disappoint. A unique combination of fiberglass mesh
and PTFE-laminated film with a prominent silver cast, the translucent skin can change in appearance from moment to moment, in all levels of light and darkness. Inside the stadium, the visual drama is amplified by sound. Seating is unusually close to the field (or “pitch”), placing spectators nearly on top of the action in a 360-degree seating bowl that includes a vertically
angled standing section at one end. Dubbed the Wonderwall and reserved for the team’s most passionate fans, the standing section creates a wall of sound during intense game action that deflects off the fabric enclosure and back onto the pitch. “We knew that if we designed the Wonderwall right,” says Minnesota United CEO Chris Wright, “the 2,900 fans in that section would lead the entire game experience.”
A confetti pattern of Minnesota United colors enlivens the Allianz Field seating bowl—except where a single seat color forms a portion of the team logo (Loon feathers) or spells out “MNUFC.”
A wide lawn on the north side of the stadium softens the walk back to cars and transit stops after a game. The special high-performance fabric wrapping Allianz Field (see sidebar on page 46) offers dynamic translucence for backlighting.
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