The Environment and Comprehensive Plans

MDC senior research fellow, John Carmody, and I have presented at a series of workshops for the planning staff of the Alliance for Sustainability, who are responsible for delivering comprehensive plans to the Metropolitan Council by the end of the year. The Metropolitan Council is the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for the Twin Cities metropolitan region. The Council's mission is to foster efficient and economic growth for a prosperous region. The 17-member Metropolitan Council has guided the strategic growth of the metro area for nearly 50 years. John talked about sustainable buildings and district energy systems, and I spoke about the impact of electric-powered, shared autonomous vehicles in reducing air pollution, fossil fuel use, and impervious surfaces – all of which will be very good for the environment. Thomas Fisher

Towerside and a World's Fair

Our own “innovation district” is emerging east of the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus.  Buoyed by 4 light rail stations, and - at last count - 4 craft beer breweries, new housing and a grocery store, Towerside is a laboratory for lifelong learning, research and innovation, and sustainability and resilience. MDC prepared a district framework plan and developed design guidelines for the district in 2016.   We are assisting private and public projects advance within this framework, including EXPO 2023, for which Minneapolis is one of 3 finalist cities to host the event. If chosen in November 2017, much of the World’s Fair’s complex - buildings, activities and events - would take place on a 60-acre site in the Towerside district, east of TCF Bank stadium.  Over 3 months, EXPO 2023 would offer a collection of local and international exhibits and activities addressing the theme of “Wellness and Well-Being for All.” It is predicted to draw 150,000 visitors per day. Outcomes could include the new Granary Parkway and the completion of the Grand Rounds missing link, which is part of the Towerside vision.

Tim Griffin

Frank Lloyd Wright's Urbanism

The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive shows how much the most famous American architect thought about cities. While MOMA presents two of his most famous urban proposals, Broadacre City, and the Mile-High Skyscraper, some lesser-known projects seemed more revelatory. In 1926, Wright imagine a nine-block area in Chicago’s Loop with skyways, traffic-dominated streets, and towers looming above lower buildings – recalling downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. Six years later, during the Depression, Wright designed a farm unit that would enable farmers to live, work, and sell their produce in a single mixed-use development that today’s struggling farmers might want to consider. A third urban proposal, designed in 1946 for Galesburg Country Homes in Michigan, has single family homes occupying circular lawns with shared spaces between pairs of them, bringing to mind the rethinking of suburbia that Shane Coen and David Salmela proposed in Mayo Woodlands in Rochester, and realized with Jackson Meadow in Marine on St. Croix, MN. Wright may be famous for his architecture, but his urban ideas may be more significant over the long term. 

Tom Fisher

Research and Practice

At the request of the editors of a new journal, TAD (Technology / Architecture + Design), published by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, I have written an essay about how the architectural profession might repair the broken knowledge loop between practitioners and researchers. Referring to some of the efforts going on in Minnesota to repair this loop, such as the MS degree in Research Practices and the Affiliate structure of the MDC, I offer a number of ideas in how architects and academics might interact and communicate more effectively. The MDC Affiliates, numbering approximately 20, include Senior Research Fellows and design professionals who have a range of expertise. The MDC remains an on-going experiment in how to reconcile the two cultures of research and practice, and I think we have begun to make real progress. Tom Fisher