design : Featured Stories

The Twin Cities design community wields not just national, but international influence. The U of M is developing alliances between its design college and some unlikely partners as design expands from crafting objects to organizing human experience. The economic meltdown, the Katrina aftermath, and the BP oil spill could have been avoided if those in charge had thought like designers. These are some of the insights from Tom Fisher, Dean of the University of Minnesota's College of Design, in the first of our "Big Picture" interviews.

Lunalux, Jenni Undis' hip printing shop and paper-goods boutique on Minneapolis' Loring Park, pioneered in the crafting of "indie" greeting cards--cleverly conceived fine-press alternatives to Hallmark. Some of the most design-savvy people and organizations in town have gone to Undis for their printing needs--and her retail shop is full of offbeat paper goods you won't find anywhere else.

With their Couchoid, their Blockoid, and a sofa bed called The One-Night Stand, the men behind Minneapolis' Blu Dot furniture line make it clear how much they like to tweak the solemn "celebrity designer" image as they craft affordable furniture that is way too cool to be trendy. Our Resident Tourist, Dale Connelly, gets the deets on a company that is as devoted to insouciance as it is to start-to-finish craftsmanship.

When you're waiting for the Hiawatha light-rail train, chances are that somewhere in the station are one or two of the little kiosks created by Brooklyn-based artist Janet Zweig. Turn a wheel, pull a lever, and you'll hear a story about old days in Saint Paul, see a Twin Cities comic perform, discover a singer. More than 100 local performing artists contributed to Zweig's project, dubbed Small Kindnesses, Weather Permitting. The Line managing editor Jon Spayde pulls a few levers to show you how they work.

While many of us do our best to retrofit our houses to be more sustainable--adding insulation, putting in low-flow toilets, installing a solar panel on the roof--some Twin Cities architects and designers are going all-the-way green with rehabs and new house designs that are radically--and even experimentally--devoted to environmental responsibility. Two of the most prominent locally are the EcoDEEP Haus in Saint Paul, an environmentally concerned architect's refitting of his own house, and the University of Minnesota's ICON Solar House, the result of the input of some 150 design students. And these sensible, responsible houses also happen to be way cool to look at and live in.

When USA Network needed a new brand identity, some of the biggest ad agencies in North America competed for the account. The winner? An 11-person agency in Minneapolis with a company brand so low-key that they don't even capitalize their name. Since then, mono has become one of the hottest shops in America, applying loads of hip midwestern creative power to the proposition that simple messages are the most memorable.

In North Minneapolis, there's an arts center that's been tapping into, and amplifying, the energy of African-American youth culture for fifteen years. Juxtaposition Arts is a place where neighborhood kids fired up by hip-hop turn street savvy into beauty and visual excitement through art and design. "Juxta" has collaborated with the likes of the Walker Art Center and the Guthrie Theater, but its heart has always been in its neighborhood; and now, with a planned $8.2- million expansion, it's primed to be a major player in the cities' art scene as it amps up its impact on the North Side.

The Twin Cities' newest bike cafe, Angry Catfish Bicycles and Coffee, joins two predecessors, One on One Bicycle Studio and Cars R Coffins Coffee Bar/Cykel Garage in catering to the caffeination needs, and gear lust, of serious bike riders. These coffee house/bike shop/art gallery hybrids are celebrations of two-wheel culture in a town that's getting prouder and prouder of it.

In the first of a series of talks with urbanists about the future of our Cities, writer, blogger, and real estate consultant Sam Newberg, whose nom de blog is Joe Urban, lets us in on the street-level reasons why reasonably dense, pedestrian-friendly, walkable cities with good public transit make bottom-line sense. And he makes some recommendations for our Central Corridor light-rail right-of-way too--like keep the on-street parking and slow down the cars.

Like it or not, the Twin Cities are competing with major metropolises around the world--we're talking Amsterdam, London, Tokyo, and the like--to attract creative, innovative, entrepreneurial people who can live anywhere. That's the message of adman John Foley, whose brand-new nonprofit, 4Front, aims to raise awareness of this high-stakes situation by creating a yearly festival that's part competition, part showcase of Twin Cities innovation. The goal: to lure the best and brightest worldwide to our towns.

To celebrate the creation a graduate minor in product design, and raise awareness of the field within the Twin Cities' vibrant design community, the University of Minnesota's College of Design held a wide-ranging symposium on the discipline of designing objects to sell. Experts weighed in on everything from the role of humor in design creativity to the popularity of vintage clothing stores--and more than one presenter warned that the increasing geographical separation of design centers from factories is weakening product design in the US and favoring China, where designers and producers interact with ease.

Think of them as small, elegant design objects you live in. They take a whole lot less time to put up than your average house--even your average little house--because they are almost entirely prefabricated. They're weeHouses by St. Paul's Alchemy Architects, and they're a hot commodity in the national, and even international, design world.

Meet the quirky, inviting business district at 28th and Johnson in Northeast Minneapolis--an urban village that, at least for now, seems to have found an elusive middle ground: it's got enough enticing amenities to attract strollers, shoppers, and eaters, but it's not well enough known for there to be parking problems and half-hour waits for a table.

What happens when an architect designs a house for a designer or some other creative-industry professional? In the Twin Cities, the result is likely to be both stylistically ambitious and sensitive--to the neighborhood, to the neighbors, and to the planet. Two projects by a couple of the area's premier architects show how hip new houses can both stand out and fit in.

On his web site Olive & Myrtle, Saint Paul designer/merchant Aaron Porvaznik sells beautiful, high-design things, from housewares to toys to bedspreads, that aren't exactly necessities. So why is he thriving at a time when most folks don't have many spare dollars to spend? It might have something to do with the passionate care he takes to make sure that everything on Olive & Myrtle is sustainably sourced--and his conviction that good design and sustainability are practically the same thing.