A group of designers who call themselves the
What!Worx Collaboration have won a design competition for artist housing on Minneapolis' North Side by taking a collage approach -- both to the design and to how they worked.
That's appropriate, because the Bearden Place townhouses are meant to honor 20th-century artist
Romare Bearden, who used collage to depict and comment on contemporary life, particularly for African-Americans.
The competition, sponsored by the City of Minneapolis and the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, was also a way to stir up ideas for regenerating neighborhoods hit hard by the foreclosure crisis (
pdf).
The site, at Sheridan and Plymouth avenues, is in the Willard-Hay neighborhood, one of two in Minneapolis still seeing foreclosures in double digits each month. Citywide, the foreclosure rate fell in 2009 but has been creeping up again this year. City government has been
battling back on a number of fronts � including the Bearden Place design competition.
Ira A. Keer, an interior architect, started What!Worx in 2007 with other design professionals from major firms who found themselves on their own as the recession took hold in their industries. "Our combined portfolios opened doors," Keer says. The group's ad-hoc business structure could respond flexibly as opportunities arose.
What!Worx's Tim Heitman, a graphic and environmental designer, said the team's 1,600-square-foot live/work spaces (
pdf) were among the most generous of the
38 submitted designs. The exteriors, Heitman says, have a color collage's "sense of articulation and individuality."
Negotiations to build the project are underway.
Source: Ira A. Keer, Tim Heitman, What!Worx Collaborative Design
Writer: Chris Steller