As partner and lead designer at AECIX, a small design studio created by a friend and I, we had found our way into some pretty cool stuff, like designing for the renovation of an old tire retreading factory in Northeast Minneapolis into office studios. It is not every day you find yourself with such unique opportunity, but we got to do it twice! The first time being this factory building that was built in 1941 with an amazing art deco façade. Upon completion of the extraordinarily successful project we moved into the primary suite and felt truly fortunate that our new studio was so close to our primary client, the University of Minnesota. With the approach of the Great Recession, however, we were experiencing a lot more competition there and we needed to downsize. By a miracle, we received a call from Scott Hagg, a home remodeler, who had seen the finished building and wanted to work with us on a similar project.
Scott and his partner Tessa now owned an old service station turned chop shop, due to its proximity to the City of Minneapolis impound lot. There was a lot of activity in the neighborhood and new businesses moving in, so they wanted to capitalize on the opportunity they saw. There was already a connected garage that Scott planned to use as a shop for his residential contracting business. Their grand scheme was to renovate the main building to create boutique office studios. They also aspired to construct a second level to create a new home for themselves with an amazing view of the city. The icing on the cake, and biggest surprise of all, was their desire to utilize the common spaces as an art gallery. We did not understand the significance of this until we learned this was to showcase Tessa’s father’s artwork and family collection. Max Günther was a famous Swiss Postwar & Contemporary painter who was immensely successful in the 60’s. They had nearly a hundred pieces and planned to have a rotating exhibition in the hallways! So, we set out to develop a scheme that would provide 6 offices, a shared kitchen and restrooms, plus a functioning gallery.
The interesting thing about the building, and challenge when planning it, was the shape. It really is “Askew” because the north side of the building followed the line of a no longer present railway track, which had been angled to the Northwest. This shape also did not help us formulate a viable and affordable plan for a second story addition. Not having the North and South walls parallel caused a lot of engineering problems and the required structural work would have been just too much for the budget. Thankfully, our clients wanted to proceed with the interior renovation and loved the design concept we presented. In this configuration, the main corridor was broken into display sections with appropriate widths, and lighting, to allow one or three pieces per wall section. These are timed with the suite entry doors which were slightly recessed to accentuate the artwork. The exterior roof canopy is aligned with the entry ceiling, rising from the outside to the inside, creating a space visible from the street for an art piece chandelier. In the design we created, there were many details they loved but had not budgeted for, so we made a special deal on our fee for first pick of one of the six small studios. We negotiated an adjusted rent to save additional cash for the project, and the Askew Building became our new home. It was a wonderful and exciting place to work with all the growth in the area, plus the owners had some great parties with the shop and gallery open to their friends, clients, and tenants. They also insisted that we select some of Max’s works to display within our office. His artwork is stunning and some of it very architectural, so we gladly accepted and admired the various pieces during our time there. We were again truly fortunate to make this building, which we designed, our home.
