Architectural Record – August 2019

90 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD AUGUST 2019

Nicollet Mall

James Corner Field Operations

Snow Kreilich Architects

Tillotson Design Associates

By David Sokol

OUTDOOR LIGHTING

In the mIddle of the last century, when suburbia threatened to drain

Minneapolis of businesses and retailers, the city reinvented itself in the

image of corporate campuses and indoor malls. Local officials convert­

ed a dozen blocks of the city’s Nicollet Avenue into a transit mall

according to a design by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, while

real­estate developers inserted miles of skyways that connect the sur­

rounding buildings. Today, this downtown zone is being revitalized as a

mixed­use neighborhood, and Minneapolis is again reshaping its urban

fabric by implementing a redesign of the Nicollet Mall, led by the land­

scape architecture and urban­design firm James Corner Field Opera^ ­

tions, with lighting by New York–based Tillotson Design Associates

(TDA) and local expertise contributed by the notable Snow Kreilich

Architects and landscape architect Coen+Partners.

According to Field Operations senior associate Megan Born, the new

scheme retains Halprin’s existing curvilinear street, while organizing

it to work better for pedestrians—people who are walking through it or

those seeking out the mall as a destination in itself. For the former

group, Field Operations created a clearly legible, 10­foot­wide walkway

next to buildings, with TDA outfitting 43­foot­tall poles with adjustable

LED floodlights to supply most of the ambient illumination. “Making a