Minneapolis Public Service Building receives AIA NY Honor Award
In a ceremony Monday evening, the Minneapolis Public Service Building received an Honor Award from AIA New York. The annual Design awards program recognizes outstanding architectural design led by AIA New York members regardless of project location.
Completed in 2021 in collaboration with local architects MSR Design, the 11 story Minneapolis Public Service building collocates seven city departments within an airy, transparent, and accessible civic structure that fills out the perimeter of the city’s main civic plaza.
“The architects were very thoughtful in terms of choreographing the relationships between the different parts of the building,” said Sean Canty, jury member and Founder of SSC and Office III and assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. “The façade strategy tries to balance the sense of opacity and transparency through a number of moves at three different scales that I think is really successful.”
Henning Larsen with MSR were selected to lead the design of the project following a public procurement process. With the goal of promoting an accessible and people-focused project, the design team followed a strategic concept geared towards weaving the building into its context while allowing it to stand out ad be reflective of the diversity in Minneapolis.
“It has a very warm, friendly, accessible, transparent skin and creates very explicit and well-orchestrated wayfinding,” said Julie Snow, jury member and founding principal of Snow Kreilich Architects, a Minneapolis-based practice. “It really makes your interface with the city very easy, and makes it feel accessible and responsive. As a brief, it’s pretty much what all cities need these days, and perhaps mostly Minneapolis.”
In addition to the AIA NY award, the Minneapolis Public Service building also received an Honor Award from AIA Minnesota, noting excellence in “Design for Integration, Change Energy, Equitable Communities, and Well-Being.
