Archives

1. Utah Valley University Browning Administration Building Clinic, Classroom & Faculty Facility

   This reconfiguration of Utah Valley University’s Brown Administration Building addresses a domino effect of new construction on campus that resulted in portions of the building becoming available for new purposes. The design team provided test fits to determine how the space could be used most efficiently to support room for future growth. The project was expedited to coordinate it with the schedules of new building openings, demolition of other buildings, and the academic calendar. The design incorporates the university’s brand identity and wayfinding into a mix of spaces, including a student hub, hangout and study spaces, student collaboration area, classrooms, faculty offices, a clinical therapy suite with a public lobby, therapy rooms, observation rooms for teaching, and clinical offices.

2. Utah Valley University Foreign Language Department Student Hub & Liberal Arts Garden

   This project involved renovating space that opened up as the result of other departments moving to another location. The building houses Utah’s most robust ASL program. The renovation creates a strong identity for the department and maximizes interaction and collaboration among students across departments. The design transforms a completely enclosed space into a hub that is transparent on both sides, providing spaces for active student programming, hanging out, and group and individual study. It features acoustical recording booths where students can create content. MSR Design also developed high-quality graphics and signage for wayfinding and visual identity.

3. L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library

   Design guiding principles for this library building transformation included creating a destination for the region that serves as the heart of the city and linking the building to the Eau Claire River and downtown civic facilities. Stakeholder-directed improvements include a 200-seat program space, an expanded children’s area, a mix of meeting rooms, quiet spaces for study, space for tweens and teens, and a learning lab. Inclusive design elements include aspects that support neurodiversity, gender-inclusive toilet rooms, and comfort rooms.

   A makerspace called the Dabble Box and innovation lab spaces provide access to specialized technology, teaching kitchen equipment, and art equipment to support maker sessions, STEAM-based education, and nutrition literacy. All major building systems, dating back to 1975, were replaced with more efficient and sustainable systems, including a geothermal heating and cooling system that runs below the plaza. Redesigned vertical circulation provides more intuitive wayfinding and better visual connections between all four floors.

4. MSR Design 510 Marquette Studio

   Located in a large open space on the second floor of a 1925 office building, MSR Design’s new studio cultivates the firm’s design culture through spaces that support the myriad ways of making architecture and make the design process visible. The design arranges workstations around the perimeter near large windows that overlook the urban setting. Staff can choose from a mix of flexible spaces for individual focus or collaboration in a dynamic environment that promotes productivity and creativity. The juxtaposition of a solid black box inserted into the open, white perimeter areas defines and delineates the various zones. The project’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system includes enhanced air filtration, monitors, and controls for the health and well-being of staff and visitors. The project has achieved Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification for the materials, beauty, and equity petals.

    

5. Salt Lake City Northwesst Pipeline Building

   This project involves converting the historic Northwest Pipeline Building, which served as Salt Lake City’s public safety complex, into mixed-income housing and commercial tenant space. It is part of the Housing Assistance Management Enterprise’s larger vision for The Grove—a green, dense, mixed-use community focused on family-friendly housing and community amenities. The project will include rent-to-own and rental apartments. Focused on family-friendly design principles, the design features multiple play areas, a planned childcare center and health clinic, dog park, and ample green space shaded by native trees. Connected to the city’s emerging Green Loop, the project will incorporate parking reduction strategies, such as off-site and shared parking. The Northwest Pipeline Building conversion is the first phase of a comprehensive approach to redeveloping the greater site through extensive community engagement into a planned near-net zero, micro-community that will positively contribute to the vitality of the neighborhood.

   MSR Design is partnering with the Housing Assistance Management Enterprise (HAME), Xylem Projects, and Common Ground Institute on the project.

   View more project details here.

    

    

    

6. Washburn Lofts Penthouse

   This project involved a full renovation of a penthouse loft within a historic mill utility building that was converted into housing in 2003. Key goals for the project included maintaining homeowner health and well-being, supporting aging in place, and ensuring the reuse of existing items within the space through donations. 9.49 tons of items, with a $150,000 resale value, were donated to Better Futures, a nonprofit product resale organization, including millwork, appliances, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, fireplaces, doors, and hardware. Focusing on occupant health, the design team selected only Red List free certified and natural materials. Design features that encourage well-being include rooms oriented towards outdoor views, soft edges and natural materials that create a calming environment, and active use rooms (e.g., the media room and home office) that are acoustically separated from the rest of the home. To support aging in place, the loft includes wide pathways, flexible design elements for future accessibility upgrades (e.g., electrical in-wall wiring that accommodates the lowering of outlets and switches), easy-to-grasp cabinet pulls, and dimmable lighting.

7. Haverford College Visual Culture, Arts & Media (VCAM) Building

   Haverford College’s new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) building repurposes a gym built in 1900 into a vibrant 21st-century learning environment. The design preserves the old gym’s central, two-story vaulted space, while inserting a three-story, object study/media production classroom and creating a new living room for the campus. All primary program spaces open onto and animate the heart of the building—a three-story remnant of an indoor running track—that now functions as campus family room with kitchen, community table, display area, projection wall, and movable furniture. Classrooms, labs, offices, and presentation spaces encourage trans-disciplinary collaboration and experimentation in digital media, film, 3D fabrication, and material culture. The project is certified LEED-NC v. 3 Gold.

8. Tulsa City-County Central Library

   The design team targeted three primary goals for the project: 1. Become a downtown destination that contributes to renewal of the urban core. 2. Create a library building that responds to 21st-century library needs. 3. Be generative, positively impacting library users, the surrounding community, the library industry, and the environment.

   To achieve these goals, the design team crafted a building program and architectural response that includes a revitalized, humanized civic plaza and new public garden for programming and community events; a clear, secure entry sequence in which all ways of entering the library collect into one main lobby area; a new parking garage; an interactive education center; a maker space; and a destination children’s library with direct access to the garden. Sustainable measures include improved thermal performance of the entire building envelope, daylight harvesting and lighting strategies, and the first rooftop photovoltaic solar array installed on a Tulsa building.

9. Mill City Museum

   Located within the ruined walls of the National Historic Landmark Washburn A Mill, the Mill City Museum focuses on the stories of flour milling, water power, railroading, food product development, grain trading, and farming, as well as the related people, labor, and immigrant stories. With multiple entries on two levels, the museum functions as a porous link between downtown Minneapolis and the river. A must-see addition to the riverfront’s menu of cultural attractions, the museum furthers the city’s vision of reconnecting to its birthplace at Saint Anthony Falls.

10. Madison Public Library Central Library

    The library has been completely transformed to adapt gracefully over time, provide a user-centric environment that addresses both customer and staff needs, and offer a community destination that enhances Madison’s cultural offerings. A huge success, the transformed library has become a popular and vibrant community amenity that has spurred urban redevelopment. Since its reopening in September 2013, the third floor spaces have been continuously booked for everything from art openings and concerts to fundraisers and weddings, and new businesses have opened on adjacent blocks, further increasing the vitality of a part of the city that was previously struggling.

    Potter Lawson served as associate architect, also providing cost estimating and electrical engineering for the project.