Architectural Record – August 2019

(Chris Devlin) #1

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
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