IMPROVING EFFICIENCY AND RESILIENCY BY DESIGN EXPLORING ARCHITECTURE’S IMPACTS ON COMMUNITIES

CARRIE MCDERMOTT

Awell-designed space has the power to impact lives in ways that are both conscious and subconscious, tangible and intangible. Michelle Mongeon Allen, FAIA, CEO of JLG Architects, Minneapolis, said there’s a “renewed appreciation for the impact of design to elevate the human experience beyond just operations.”

Gone are the days of designing a building purely for utilitarian purposes. Today’s architects are creating living and working spaces that meld soft and hard surfaces, bringing the textures, colors and openness of nature to the indoors. They’re also designing buildings that are more cost-efficient to run, that use sustainable resources and are less impactful to the environment.

JLG Architects focuses on high-performance buildings, Mongeon Allen said. Factors they consider include the types of materials used and how those materials impact the well-being of the users and stakeholders.

One of the crown jewels for the firm is the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, which broke ground June 12. North Dakota-based JLG is the architect of record, working alongside the Norwegian and U.S. firm Snøhetta, the design architect for the project. The library is designed to be Living Building Challenge certified, which is one of the highest and most difficult certifications to achieve in terms of sustainability. One of Roosevelt’s core beliefs was conservation, and the design solution for this project is all about conservation, Mongeon Allen said.

The structure and the natural site on which it sits in western North Dakota will be interwoven so closely that it will be hard to distinguish between the two.

“From a conversation standpoint, the land and what we are doing to preserve and restore what is there is as important to the building and the exhibits. They all really work together. That was really what Theodore Roosevelt was all about,” she said.

In addition to creating high-performance buildings, architects are designing for new manufacturing technologies, such as modular construction. North Dakota-based Artekta is one of the nation’s top modular architects.

Artekta founder and Senior Principal Jeffrey Morrau said he first learned about the fast turnaround times of modular construction about 12 years ago when working with Detroit Lakes, Minnesota-based Dynamic Homes to provide small units on a rural and isolated reservation. The units are manufactured in a factory, delivered to the construction location and over a weekend can be assembled on site with just five or six people, Morrau explained.

“It really opened my eyes,” he said.

In 2008, his firm worked on its first podium project with a precast concrete first floor and modular boxes set on top to create a four-story apartment building above ground-floor office space in Williston, North Dakota.

“It was a solution to a problem. I didn’t realize at the time, but it made a splash,” he said.

Pave Your Own Career Path At Moore

After designing more modular buildings over the next few years, Artekta started to design the factories that manufacture the “mods.” One of those is a 180,000-squarefoot facility on the outskirts of Minneapolis. More recently, Marriott Hotels built a hotel using modular construction.