VJAA win 3 of 7 AIA Minnesota Honor Awards
Wow. It's been an impressive week of Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA) of Minneapolis. Two of the firm's principals, Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos, spoke at the Walker Art Center's Drawn Here design talks. And the AIA announced that the firm won three AIA Minnesota Honor Awards for the following buildings:



The Petter’s Pavilion
Collegeville, Minnesota at St. John's Abbey, by VJAA



Porter Boathouse at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin by VJAA



The Lavin-Bernick Center for Student Life, Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana, by VJAA

For more photos of the Tulane University project, click here. There's also an in-depth interview with the architects about the Lavin-Bernick Center available at the podlounge and iTunes.

A few months ago, I interviewed Minnesota architects Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos about their philosophy and approach to architecture. It's a two-part segment. You can listen to that interview here.


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Three other Minnesota architecture firms also won awards. Hammel, Green and Abramson (HGA) won two AIA Minnesota Honor Awards for public projects at the University of Minnesota and Ramsey County. BKV Group designed a new city hall and public safety building for the city of Plymouth, Minnesota. And David Salmela was awarded a prize for his cluster of houses overlooking Lake Superior in Duluth.



Wall of Discovery
University of Minnesota by HGA



Ramsey County Library
Maplewood, Minnesota by HGA



Plymouth Public Safety Building and City Hall
Plymouth, Minnesota by BKV Group

The final AIA Honor Award was given to David Salmela of Salmela Architects in Duluth. A technological glitch prevented me from uploading a photo of his winning project, the Clure Project in Duluth. It's a cluster of three modernist houses that perch on a steep hill in a traditionally working class neighborhood of the city. When I interviewed Salmela for a Building Minnesota radio story a couple of years ago, his house, which is part of the Clure Project, was under construction.

Workers were wedging a giant glass window into place at the time. (Listen to the radio story and you'll hear that.) I found the location, the materials and the use of space simply marvelous. The exterior of David Salmela's house is made of the same material as skateboard parks. It's a scratchy black.

To learn more about Salmela, check out this podcast.



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VJAA's Tulane University project
I plan to visit New Orleans in 2008. One of the stops on my list is the new Lavin-Bernick Student Center at Tulane University, pictured above and below. Designed by Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA) of Minneapolis, the $28 million renovation of the student center was nearly a decade in the making. The project was delayed by a lack of funding after 9/11 and flooding from Hurricane Katrina.







To non-architects, $28 million may sound like plenty of money for a building makeover, but in this instance, James and Yoos say they had a tight budget. Based on the size of the student center, the $28 million worked out to about $185 per square foot. A new building would have cost the university in the neighborhood of $300 per square foot.

The architects and client both wanted the building to be as green as possible. And they wanted the building to have what so many other New Orleans houses, hotels and public buildings possess — a connection between the inside and exterior environment. So how does achieve those objectives (and frugally) in steamy New Orleans?





VJAA opted for a complex and modern shading system that allows people inside the building to see what's happening outside and keeps out too much direct sunlight, which heats up the inside unnecessarily.



The pair were also inspired by the film classic Lawrence of Arabia. While the rest of us watched Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif and the vast desert, James and Yoos were fixated on the fans during the movies few interior scenes.

Yes, the fans.

"That's so beautiful to see a building with this slow movement that is continuous," James says. "Maybe our building could actually be constantly moving. So you look at it from the outside and you sense that slow pulsing of the fans. So it became a major part of the experience."



VJAA principals Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos are sure to discuss the project on Thursday night when they appear at the Walker Art Center's Drawn Here design lecture. The presentation begins at 7 p.m. in the McGuire Theatre.

You can listen to an interview with Minnesota architects Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos discussing the project at podlounge or podcast alley. You can also subscribe to the Building Minnesota podcast at iTunes. It's free!

Drawn Here at Walker Art Center
If you missed the lecture by London architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates at the Walker Art Center a couple of weeks ago, the museum has been kind enough to archive it at The Walker Channel, a kind of online C-SPAN for art and design junkies. Adjaye designed the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and several buildings and houses in the U.K. According to the Walker, Adjaye's firm has "quickly garnered international acclaim for its inventive approaches to the design of a variety of private residences and public buildings."

One of Adjaye's future projects is a planned hotel/residence/office tower at Sixth and Wabasha in downtown St. Paul (though Adjaye called this location "Minneapolis"). "This will be my first tower if we do this," Adjaye said. "It looks we're going to start next year. I want to do a tower as a geology of a place, to look at the history of place."

It's not clear the project will actually get built. On November 16, The Business Journal reported that the developer hasn't shown plans to the city yet. And then there's the shaky economy.

The Walker Channel's video includes images for the modernist tower in downtown St. Paul. It's near the end of Adjaye's presentation. If I get my hands on images, I will post them here.

By now, you're probably wondering what the heck the image is at the top of this post. It's from a close-up of windows at the student center at Tulane University, designed by Vincent James Associates Architects. Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos of VJAA will be talking about that New Orleans building and other projects during their Drawn Here lecture at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Walker Art Center.

Maybe the Ford Plant doesn't have to close
David Morris of the Institute for Self-Reliance argues that the Ford Plant, located in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood and slated for closing due to slow pickup sales, should manufacture hybrid plug-in F150 Ranger trucks. Ford built and leased 1,500 such pickups in California a couple of years ago. The pickups were popular with drivers and saved energy, but Ford scrapped the idea. Now Ford has a new CEO, the end of oil seems near and Morris says the company might be open to the idea of a greener vehicle. It was published in yesterday's Strib and is available here.

Curious about the Whitney?
The former Whitney Hotel, located on the Mississippi Riverfront near the Guthrie Theatre, has been under construction for what seems like years now. Today's Star Tribune has an update on plans to renovate the historic property to 25 condo units. The project has suffered construction delays, allegations of mistreating workers and is now plagued by slow sales of units. The 1879 building opened as the Standard Mill.

Andrew's Modern House - Final Chapter

Andrew Blauvelt and Julie Snow are friends. He's design director at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She's an award-winning architect. After designing Julie's modernist book, Andrew is having Julie design his modernist house.

Since December 2005, we’ve been following the construction of this two-story house, which is located at the corner of 38th and Lyndale in Minneapolis. A year ago, we were on site for the concrete pour. At the time, the second story was framed, the steel beams had arrived, but not much else was finished.

Now construction is complete and Andrew has moved in. The exterior is made of concrete and a Brazilian hardwood called Ipe (pronounced e-pay). The east face of the house has a stunning sea of beautiful windows. And the inside has some of the most stunning pieces of modern furniture you’ll ever see. (Photos by Scott Theisen)

The A-Z of Modern Architecture
When I visit architects' offices, I often get book envy. Sure I've got Rem Koolhaus' S, M, L, XL on my shelf, the biography of Chicago preservationist Richard Nickel (They All Fall Down), and a few other architectural titles. But the rest of my collection is chock full of novels, histories and the like. Maybe I need a damn big architectural encyclopedia to fill that gap in my library. The A-Z of Modern Architecture by Peter Gossel aims to be that book.

"The history of modernism begins, to cut a long story woefully short, with the emergence of the notion of an individual acting with sole responsibility," writes Gossel. "This happened against a background of the loss of the churches' cultural dominance, and a situation driven by the contradictions of a productive sphere geared towards profit. This radical change, often equated with the 'revaluation of all values' (Nietzsche), finds its technical and social expression in the industrialization that drastically altered the lifestyles of humankind and, with the intensive development of urban areas, had a very direct impact on architecture."

You can read more of Gossel's essay here.

Taschen says its book "puts the architects in the spotlight, profiling individuals so that readers can get a clear overview of their bodies of work. Each architect’s entry features a portrait, quote, and short biography as well as a description of important works, historical context, and general approach; illustrations include numerous drawings, photographs, and floor plans."

The extra-large format book ain't cheap. It retails for $250, but I saw it on Amazon for a mere $157.50.

Policy wonk alert: How states are encouraging green architecture
Some people love politics and public policy. Others would rather have their fingernails removed by a gang of sadistic monkeys. Most of the time, I'm the first camp. That's why I subscribe to a weekly e-mail from Stateline, an online, nonpartisan news service that focuses on news from Lansing, St. Paul, Sacramento, Austin and the other 46 state capitals. (Lansing is the capital of Michigan, right?) Anyway, today's e-mail included a piece called States 'green-building' laws lead by example. In the story, Karen Nitkin reports that Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois and Hawaii are offering various green incentives to encourage architects and builders to do the right thing.

"Nevada and New Mexico, have established tax incentives for private developers to meet LEED standards," writes Nitkin. "Illinois in August became the first state to offer financial incentives to LEED-compliant neighborhood development, providing as much as 1.5 percent of total development costs from the state's Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for as many as three neighborhoods a year. Hawaii’s incentive focuses on building permits: The state offers quicker processing time for construction that achieves LEED Silver standard."

And Minnesota? Not mentioned.

Architecture Minnesota
I picked up an issue of Architecture Minnesota at the AIA Minnesota convention the other day. It has stories on several topics we've touched on here at Building Minnesota, except in more detail, of course. Linda Mack reports on pedestrian access issues at the new Twins stadium ("A Walk in the Park"). There's a big worry about the lack of space between the light rail stop and the ballpark -- only 27 feet separate the two spaces, making for cramped quarters for the thousands of fans expected to arrive before the first pitch and after the last out. Tom Fisher of the College of Design ("A Tales of Two Bridges") ponders the connection between the Guthrie's "endless bridge" cantilever and the collapsed I-35W bridge and examines what it says about public and private investment. And Heather Beal examines how LRT might work in St. Paul.

AIA Minnesota convention begins today
The 2007 AIA Minnesota convention is revving up at the Convention Center in Minneapolis. I'm looking forward to several presentations, including "Where in the World is Architecture," by Robert Ivy, editor in chief of Architectural Record, (today at 3 p.m.); "Modern Eco-Homes" by architect Randy Brown of Omaha, Nebraska (Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.); "Too Close for Comfort? Historic Preservation Goes Modern," by Charlene Roise of Hess, Roise and Company of Minneapolis; and "ESG Architects: Profile of Practice," by architects David Graham and Mark Swenson of Elness Swenson Graham, winner of the 2007 AIA Minnesota Firm Award (Friday at 10:15 a.m.). The full schedule is available here.

The image at the top of this post is from an Architectural Record article on Randy Brown's house. (Photo courtesy of Farshid Assassi)

Midtown Greenway Bridge opens
The Midtown Greenway Pedestrian Bridge officially opens in just a few hours (Thursday at 4:30 p.m.). The 2,200-foot bridge makes it much, much easier to cross Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis on a bicycle, skateboard or even on foot. You can read more about the bridge at a newspaper called The Bridge, which covers the Seward, Longfellow and Southeast neighborhoods in Minneapolis. There's also more information at the city's website. If you haven't clicked the video above, do so now. It's pretty cool.

Sliding ice, cracks in masonry prompt M.I.T. to sue Frank Gehry
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sued Gehry Partners, the Los Angeles-based firm of star architect Frank Gehry. The prestigious school says its $300 million Stata Center, which opened in 2004 and was designed by Gehry, has experienced "considerable masonry cracking" due to poor drainage in the building's outdoor amphitheater. Other problems: "Sliding ice and snow from the building’s window boxes and other projecting roof areas, blocking emergency exits and damaging other building elements.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Gehry accused M.I.T. of wanting his firm's insurance to fix the problem. "These things are complicated," he said. "And they involved a lot of people, and you never quite know where they went wrong. A building goes together with seven billion pieces of connective tissue. The chances of it getting done ever without something colliding or some misstep are small."

The news has resulted in dozens of stories worldwide, including:

• BBC News
• Business Week (the story includes great reader comments)
• NPR interview with New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger

Why are there so few women architects?
Women have made great strides in the fields of law and medicine. About 26 percent of all practicing physicians are female (Source: Women's Physicians Congress of the American Medical Association). About 30 percent of all lawyers are women. (Source: A Current Glance at Women in the Law, 2007, American Bar Association). However, the New York Times reports that just 13 percent of AIA members nationwide are women.

It's such a low percentage that a headline writer at the Times titled Nicolai Ouroussoff's article, "Keeping Houses, Not Building Them." After listening to a discussion on the subject at the Museum of Modern Art, Ouroussoff concluded, "Sadly, there is little reason to expect the situation to improve anytime soon. The overwhelming financial and time pressures for architects haven’t changed much, nor has the chauvinism that women must navigate, from the developer’s office to the construction site. Despite its image as a bastion of progressivism, architecture is a profession in which the glass ceiling has yet to be scratched, must less shattered."

What do you think? How are women architects in Minnesota faring? Do you agree with Ouroussoff's conclusions? How much discrimination do women face in Minnesota architecture?

Minnesota Twins stadium model
The Minnesota Twins unveiled a model of their new ballpark the other day at the Hennepin County Government Center. The stadium, designed by HOK Sport, is due to open in 2010 on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. HOK, a firm with 27 offices worldwide, also came up with the plans for Camden Yards in Baltimore and new ballparks in San Francisco and Pittsburgh.

This Star Tribune article has details of the presentation made by Earl Santee of HOK. This Star Tribune column by Nick Coleman criticizes Santee's architectural jargon and the project's $537 million price tag, including the big percentage of taxpayer money that is being used to fund the privately-owned stadium. And this article, in the Pioneer Press, examines changes the Twins made to the design to accommodate more outfield seating.

To see video animation of the new ballpark, check out the Minnesota Twins website. Meanwhile, a city-county panel is debating pedestrian hours for the concourse. Some people are suggesting it close at 10 p.m. due to security worries; Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Goodman wants it to stay open until 3 a.m. Read more about that here. (Images courtesy of Minnesota Twins and HOK Sports)

100 artists to live in Schmidt Brewery
It sounds like an artistic dream-come-true. Instead of painting in your basement, you get a cool loft in an old brewery.

That's one of the plans for the abandoned Schmidt Brewery in St. Paul. The $25-$30 million renovation project, led by Dominium of Plymouth, Minnesota, could fill up quickly -- if the rent is right. "If it's below market price, they'll have a huge demand," said Wendy Holmes of ArtSpace. A Maine developer purchased the brewery in January. Both the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune reported on the development in today's papers.