Archives

1. Bentonville Public Library Expansion

   This expansion to a beloved community library will offer more amenities and unique opportunities to learn, connect, gather, and participate in enriched programming. The expansion will reflect the community library’s values, including reading and education (focusing on all forms of learning for all ages, backgrounds, and abilities), arts and culture, bicycling and trails, connections to nature, collaboration, human services, and equitable access. New features will include an expanded children’s area with storytime space and craft area; a centrally-located, flexible makerspace; an expanded teens’ zone; additional meeting rooms; and an expanded Friends bookstore.

2. Workshop

   Converting a 100-year-old foundry in the heart of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District into an innovative, multipurpose environment presented unique challenges. MSR worked closely with the start-up creative agency to help realize its future mission and purpose through the design process. The open, flexible layout accommodates everything from workplace and making/prototyping activities to exhibitions and weddings.

   Demolition and construction revealed treasures from past use, such as hidden fire doors, an underground tunnel, and pit. The design integrates these elements throughout as reminders of the building’s rich history. Massive, custom steel-and-glass entries open onto a steel deck, providing a porous connection to the street and neighborhood. The highly-flexible and ever-evolving space simultaneously accommodates the client’s original intent for the space (workplace) and new and unexpected uses (event space).

3. URBN Corporate Campus

   Housed in Philadelphia’s historic Navy Yard, this multi-phased corporate campus provides new design studios and office space for the company’s distinctive retail brands, while celebrating the idiosyncratic remnants of 125 years of shipbuilding. Embracing both the history of the Navy Yard and URBN’s modern culture by layering old and new, the design team found inspiration in the factory characteristics of the buildings—industrial materiality, open volumes, and access to daylight—to repurpose the buildings’ major function from production to creativity. The synthesis of four measures—art, culture, economy, and environment—results in the transformation from a production-based yard to a creativity-based campus.

4. 3M Design Center

   The open, multi-level studio provides ample opportunities for creative collaboration and innovation to occur among designers, customers, business staff, and scientists. Designed to attract top talent from across the globe, the minimalist, living-room type environment encourages outside-in engagement. The range of spaces offered include a quiet zone, collaborative areas, fast prototyping lab, materials library, brand labs, interactive area, and presentation spaces.

5. Madison Public Market

   Key goals for the project are to create architecture that supports food and vendor equity and promotes Madison’s program to eliminate barriers for entrepreneurship in disadvantaged populations; offer an environment that attracts commercial, recreational and social activities; and provide an authentic, inspiring, animated public place that welcomes the entire community. The project entails converting a municipal fleet services building into an open and vibrant community space. Exploring architecture’s role in food equity and business incubation, the design offers flexible spaces to support a variety of vendors sizes, services, and experiences to ensure individual and mutual economic success. The new market will incorporate advanced stormwater management strategies to reduce runoff in a flood-prone location, focusing on physical, social, and urban resilience. The project involved a robust community engagement process to ensure that diverse voices and perspectives were included. The process included a feedback loop to demonstrate how input was incorporated and meeting with focus groups and potential vendors.

6. Sno-Isle Libraries Darrington Library

   This renovation project will provide new and enhanced library services to the Darrington community. Library design features resulted from an extensive public engagement process to reflect community needs and a truly local context. It is the first Sno-Isle Libraries project to implement elements from the Capital Framework, Design Guidelines, and Signage Standards that MSR Design developed with the library. The renovated building will include an enclosed study room, a business center, a storytime room, and outdoor space, which is connected to the existing meeting room for maximum flexibility.

7. Sno-Isle Libraries Langley Library

   This renovation of a cherished library addresses a range of needs identified during a public and staff engagement process and sets the stage for the future of library services in the community. The interior renovation includes a new floor opening that connects the main and lower levels through a stair and wheelchair lift to improve circulation and access throughout the building. A clerestory dormer in the center introduces natural daylight into the building and views to the outdoors. Other features include new reading nooks and a reinvigorated, interactive children’s area. Minimizing the use of excessive material finishes, the design team selected materials that adhere to environmental and health standards, including compliance with Environmental Product Declarations (EDP) and Health Product Declarations (HPD), as well as avoiding ILFI Red List materials. The exterior includes a new ADA ramp and stair to improve accessibility.

    

8. North Shore Bank

   The renovation offers a welcoming, customer-focused atmosphere that simultaneously represents the independent, locally-owned bank’s history and position within the Duluth community and supports its forward-thinking approach to banking. The design preserves elements of the building’s mid-century architecture considered sacred, including original wood veneer panels, the vault, terrazzo stairs, a metal wall-mounted clock, wood ceiling beams, travertine flooring, and textured brick walls. The overall layout clusters private offices and closed conference rooms in the center with open public spaces, such as the lobby concierge desk, gallery, entry lounge, social pantry, and writing nook, located along the perimeter. The removal of a large, low soffit that housed a non-operating HVAC system creates a grander experience upon entering the building from Superior Street and draws daylight into the interior. A new audio system, flexible lighting, and a diverse mix of seating support hosted events and special gatherings, as well as everyday operations. A rich palette and composition of bronze, walnut, stone, glass, terrazzo, and wool reflect mid-century modern textures and tones, while also taking cues from the bank’s newly updated brand.

9. Minnesota Children’s Museum

   A reorganized interior improves entry sequencing, ticketing, and circulation by moving the main entry from street level to skyway level where 80% of visitors arrive from a parking structure. A new central stair and elevator provide visually clear access to exhibit galleries from the main lobby. New colorful portals offer clear wayfinding to exhibit galleries, which provide neutral and flexible shell space for changing exhibits. The redesigned interior and exterior simplify the visual complexity of the original architecture to provide an orderly backdrop to the energetic chaos created by hundreds of kids engaging with highly interactive exhibits. Annual attendance at the museum has increased by 28% since reopening.

10. Madison Municipal Building

    Constructed in 1929 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Madison Municipal Building originally functioned as a United States Postal Service facility and federal courthouse. The multi-phased renovation and reorganization uncovers and preserves the building’s historic character, while adapting it to serve 21st-century government functions. The project brings together various local government agencies, previously scattered across two buildings, to improve customer service and inter-agency communication. Certified LEED-NC v. 3 Platinum, the building transformation supports the health and well-being of staff, visitors, and the entire community.