Editor’s Note
TRACK & FIELD MORGAN SHEFF
While we were putting the finishing touches on this renovation-and-expansion-themed issue, Target Field Station—an impactful addition to the city of Minneapolis—had its grand opening. It’s got us pretty excited. What could easily have been mundane urban infrastructure is instead a dynamic public space and a much-needed green gateway between downtown and the booming North Loop. The terminus of Metro Transit’s Blue and Green lines, the project is composed of an elevated train platform on grade with a generous open lawn (a green roof over new parking), which ingeniously steps down to a plaza beneath the platform via amphitheater seating. Interestingly, the design owes much to a landmark Manhattan building that Target Field Station in no way resembles. “We looked at Grand Central Terminal with its grand hall and arcades, and we developed an
approach we call Open Transit, where you create a place that is so attractive that people will go there whether they’re taking transit or not,” says Perkins Eastman partner Peter Cavaluzzi, FAIA. “Roughly 750,000 people pass through Grand Central daily, but only half ever board a train. The rest are just hanging out with their laptops, shopping in the market, or looking at the beautiful artwork. There are all these reasons to be there, and the transit is almost invisible.” Target Field Station lacked the budget for Beaux Arts extravagance, but it did have other notable advantages. “We saw Target Field’s Kasota stone wall and Ford Center’s impressive warehouse facade, and we realized that if we made [the intersection of] Fifth and Fifth the focal point of the project, the future development of the Shapco site would create another beautiful wall to the space,” says Cavaluzzi. “Rather than try to fill up the site with paving, we wanted to make a smaller,
higher-quality, uniquely tailored space that uses the adjacent buildings to create the urban walls. Our process is all about tying all of the assets together to make an even more powerful design.” If you haven’t yet visited the station, grab a sandwich or a book (or this magazine!) and park yourself on the lawn for an hour. Rich transit environments such as Target Field Station and the Green Line through the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus give us a glimpse of what an even more vibrant Twin Cities will look like in 20 years: many people boarding trains, others just there to enjoy the view.
Christopher Hudson
hudson@aia-mn.org
July/August 2014
Architecture Minnesota
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