Enhancing communities Architects and engineers share their favorite projects

By Carrie McDermott

The spaces and places people use daily are designed by architects and engineers. From roads and bridges, to parks and playgrounds, to health care centers and schools, these professionals help bring a client’s vision to reality.

This month, we asked four architects and engineers to talk about some of their favorite projects and why they found them fulfilling.

Mark Averett

Principal, architect

TSP, Rapid City, South Dakota

Mark averett

Mark Averett is the principal and architect with TSP’s Rapid City, South Dakota, office, who is celebrating 20 years with the company. Averett’s portfolio focuses on health care and Indigenous projects.

He’s worked on several projects in Parshall, North Dakota, and one of his current favorites is a community wellness center. It’s approximately 70,000 square feet and includes a pool, gym space and walking track. It was scheduled to break ground in May. A multi-family project there will open soon, and he’s working on a great hall and

I GOT TO WORK WITH AN AMAZING CONSULTANT, DENNIS SUN RHODES. WE WORKED WITH THE COLLEGE, STUDENT COMMITTEES AND EVERY TRIBE IN MONTANA. IT WAS AMAZING.

- MARK AVERETT, ARCHITECT, TSP maintenance building for the city, as well. continued on page 18

“We did a child care center, which is always a blast,” Averett said. Another recent project standout is the American Indian Hall located on Montana State University’s Bozeman campus, which opened summer 2022.

“I got to work with an amazing consultant, Dennis Sun Rhodes. We worked with the college, student committees and every tribe in Montana. It was amazing,” Averett said.

Tribal art is featured throughout the building, which was designed with geothermal efficiencies.

“It was a pretty great project,” he said.

Averett’s interest in Indigenous work stems from childhood.

“My family used to rendezvous a lot. I was really little and we would travel around Wyoming. I was born and raised there,” Averett said.

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“There are lots of Indigenous people, and it got me interested in their history.”

He’s worked with Arapahoe, Crow and Blackfeet tribes over the course of his career, and in Kyle, South Dakota, worked on a youth center in partnership with the Billy Mills foundation, Running Strong for American Indian Youth.

“You get to see how needed it was and all the opportunities it’s bringing and all the different things they’re going to use it for. It’s just incredible,” Averett said.

Averett’s favorite health care projects include a new dialysis center for Monument Health, located in Rapid City. An old Kmart building was repurposed to create the center.

“It shortened the distance for folks to come to do dialysis. It’s a great facility. We’re all pretty proud of that one – it’s a great project,” Averett said.

He enjoys helping his clients bring their ideas to life, and being able to tell their stories through his work.

“Everything comes with a story,” he said.

Rachel Harris, Project manager, architect EAPC Architects Engineers, Grand Forks, ND

Rachel Harris is an architect with EAPC Architects Engineers and has been with the firm for 12 years. She has worked on a number of projects during that time, but most recently it’s been in the health care sector.

“I really enjoy health care design. I like that there’s a lot of complexity to it, an ever-evolving nature to it,” she said. “There’s new treatment modalities, incorporating new technologies. We’re always working with a lot of different constraints.”

One of her favorite projects has been the expansion and renovation of Northwood Deaconess Health Center in Northwood, North Dakota.

The goal was to not only enlarge the footprint but bring the facility up to modern standards.

“One big driver was bringing in equipment for CT scanning and being able to do some same-day procedures, and more locally than sending patients out to another facility,” Harris said.

The project is a 25-bed hospital with 16 swing beds, which can act as a nursing home component or a long-term care component. Slated to break ground in August 2023, it features a 28,475-squarefoot addition and 30,350 square feet of renovation. It also features nine medical surgery patient rooms, an updated ER department, a procedure suite, pharmacy, imaging, lab and rehab space, she said.

Harris enjoys working on rural health care projects because they make such a big impact on their communities, both in terms of services they provide and employment opportunities.

“I really like to learn about our clients and what they do, these cultures they want to create for their staff and employees, helping them visualize their priorities for future growth and talking them through

- RACHEL HARRIS, ARCHITECT, EAPC

how that translates into their space considerations,” Harris said. Another favorite project to work on, completed in 2017, was the Minnkota Power Co-op facility. The 252,00-square-foot property includes 78,000 square feet of corporate office, 57,500 square feet of electrical operations, 27,500 square feet of warehouse and an attached 89,000-square-foot equipment maintenance facility.

“When we started talking, they were on their previous campus in Grand Forks and that campus had really grown over time. They’d acquired some adjacent properties, buildings they renovated to fit their needs, but their staff was really separated in these different buildings,” she said.

Flexible, functional and collaborative space was requested, to be dispersed throughout the facility so people could come together easily for meetings and trainings. There was also a focus on daylight, so the whole facility was designed with numerous window offices and daylight-centric spaces.

“Throughout the interiors we really focused on what they do, so we have these big columns in there that are reminiscent of glulam (laminated wood) power poles, and utilized some cable railings reminiscent of electrical cables, and used a lot of copper wraps, too,” Harris said.

Her firm does surveys after their projects are complete, which is helpful.

“It’s always great to hear the feedback, and things we could improve on in the future or things to do better, that’s always good, too,” Harris said.

Brent Dammann

Director of architecture Widseth, Grand Forks, ND

Brent Dammann has worked on K-12 facilities for most of his career. The director of architecture at Widseth currently works out of the Grand Forks office, and has been with the company for 23 years.

One of the projects that stands out to him is the Pillager Secondary School in Pillager, Minnesota, that was completed about 10 years ago. The school was the front door to the small town of fewer than 500 residents. While learning about the town’s growth and what its needs and space were, Dammann and his team developed solutions and presented them to the community. A referendum was passed to raise funds and the project moved forward.

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“They had a wonderful community, very supportive,” he said. “From a programming standpoint, it means engaging with staff, but also the tech side, working with an existing building and adding on to it, it’s a mix. That’s what I like about K-12 projects, the variety. You’ve got the educational needs, something everybody can relate to. The technical side gets into the little details,” Dammann said.

Another highlight was the product distribution center for Digi-Key Electronics in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.

“Even as the project was being built, the tech inside it was still being developed. Being flexible with design and flexible with construction was a challenge. And it was an opportunity to work with some of the best contractors in the region. They had high-performing contractors,” Dammann said.

One thing he’s really enjoyed about Widseth and his career is the ability to work on a wide variety of projects and clients, from private individuals to counties and municipalities.

Jon De Graaf

Civil engineer Bolton and Menk, Fargo, ND Civil Engineer

Jon De Graaf has been with Bolton and Menk for eight years, most recently at the Fargo office for the past two.

His favorite project since coming to Fargo is the Downtown Riverfront Improvements in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It’s located in a two-block corridor along the river adjacent to the city’s downtown.

Phase 1 of the project is a streetscape of two parking lots and enhancements. It’s now complete and includes the Market Pavilion, designed by EAPC. It’s a large, semi-open structure intended for community events such as farmers markets. Landscaping was designed to enhance the area, creating an inviting place to go and spend time with the community.

Phase 2 will be a continuation of the streetscaping into the lot directly east across the street, De Graaf said. It will have colored concrete, sidewalks, restrooms and a splash pad. The water feature is expected to open around Memorial Day 2024.

Feedback from the community has been very positive, De Graaf said.

“A lot of business owners were complimenting it, too, calling it a facelift for their back doors, which is almost like their front doors,” he said.

De Graaf said the most fulfilling part of his job is seeing what he designed completed.

“We take it from the initial conceptual stage, survey brings us information, we design it for months. For Phase 2, I spent probably six months on CAD designing and the fulfilling part is seeing it go up. It looks piecemeal as it goes up, then once it’s done, I can say, ‘yep this is what I had in my head but now on a grand scale,’” De Graaf said.

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