design : Featured Stories

The second in our series about good urban ideas around the country focuses on the placemaking concept--the increasingly popular proposition that the best city spaces are built from the ground up rather than planned from the top down--by asking users and stakeholders what they really want.

There's always something happening on Hennepin Avenue. The wide, lively downtown Minneapolis boulevard has long specialized in entertainment, from the funky to the family-friendly to the high-cultural. Camille LeFevre reports on the kickoff event of an ambitious project that will transform it. The method? Placemaking, with an accent on the arts.

A web site's judgment that Minnesota is "the most hipster state" set me wondering about our homegrown sources of cool. Have we become hip by simply being ourselves?

It's been two years since the green roof on downtown Minneapolis' massive auditorium and sports venue was installed. The Line took a tour to see how things are going and growing.

The hot design-and-marketing shop helps clients win over today's fickle, informed consumers by going way beyond  advertising to create product designs and whole new brands that are too cool to ignore.

Inspired by his kids' toy building set, he designed a colorful modular carport that incorporates solar panels--and may soon become nothing but solar panels. Is this how we'll recharge the electric vehicles of the future?

For urban designer Peter Musty, who's collaborating on plans for the Loring neighborhood in Minneapolis and the Ford site in St, Paul, walkable, transit-focused neighborhoods are non-negotiable. We need them for our health and prosperity--and to help our culture calm down.

Every summer Northeast Minneapolis struts its artistic stuff at Art-a-Whirl, which bills itself as the largest open-studio and gallery tour in the country, and which highlights the rapid growth of this fine old residential neighborhood into a magnet for artists, gallerists, and edgy restaurateurs. Bill Kelley's images capture the visual--and musical--richness.

Where Raymond Avenue meets University, artists and innovators have been living and working for decades, lured by cheap rents and a friendly, funky vibe. What will happen to them as light rail comes through, bringing construction disruption now--and an unpredictable development pattern later? The newly formed South Saint Anthony Park Creative Enterprise Zone aims to keep the neighborhood weird--and welcoming.

Most medical spaces and procedures aren't designed with the patient in mind. But that's beginning to change as health-care designers pay more attention to making the patient's experience pleasant and even fun. Here are four local examples of "human-centric" med-design.

"I basically took what was happening in the Twin Cities creatively and made my own resume," says Kate Iverson, a triple- or quadruple-threat art promoter, gallerist, and online journalist who lives at the hyperspeedily evolving interface of art, design, and social-media communication. We could think of no better person to fill us in on where those worlds meet in our towns, and to let us in on some of her favorite trendsters and Twitterers.

Here's an update on 4Front, the ambitious project initiated by local adman/marketer John Foley to make the Twin Cities a world-class innovation hub by calling international attention to our achievements and persuading top creative talent from around the world to come here to work and live. The means? Annual awards in four major areas of innovation, and a world's-fair-like showcase. Foley and a stellar board of directors are working on funding, planning a fall kickoff event, and mulling a new way to connect prizewinners with the community.

Our world-class contemporary-art showcase, the Walker Art Center, will be celebrating--and inspiring--made-in-Minnesota creativity this coming Saturday, April 9, with MN Made, a day of events and workshops keyed to our lovable local blend of sophistication and earthiness. The Walker, like The Line, defines creativity in capacious terms, so you'll not only be able to take part in a crafts sale, seed art and knitting workshops, a gallery tour, and a neo-folkie concert, but you can glean tips on chucking your day job and starting your own offbeat business.

Another local David--who is also connected to the Pacific Northwest--is an advocate for the role of good design in sustainability. David O'Brien Wagner of Minneapolis' SALA Architects speaks up for the subtle, even spiritual side of green building. Systems and certificates are important, he tells Meleah Maynard, but a building isn't green if it isn't carefully designed to connect the human and the natural worlds.

When James Garrett Jr., Nathan Johnson, and Erick Goodlow formed an architectural firm, they vowed to do more than create attractive buildings. The three Saint Paulites knew the city and its needs from the ground up, and they wanted to make an impact on the whole urban fabric. Via their company, 4RM+ULA, they're bringing a holistic design sense to some of the highest-profile projects in the Twin Cities--including the Central Corridor.