View from Convention Center Plaza

Site Plan

Interior Plan

Geological map of Minneapolis showing glacial deposits over time. (Courtesy UMN / Minnesota Geological Survey)

Geological map of Minneapolis showing glacial deposits over time; closeup of the Chain of Lakes. (Courtesy UMN / Minnesota Geological Survey)

Geological section of Minneapolis showing glacial deposits over time. (courtesy UMN / Minnesota Geological Survey)

Evolutionary / Conceptual Diagrams

Assembly Sequence

Structural Diagram

Structural Joint Types

Planting Plan: Native species are located within LakeForms structure according to plant height and seating zones.

Smartbuoy System Diagram

Long Section

Interior View

Section Perspective

Model View

Full-scale prototype of structural joinery and landscape assembly

LakeForms

Project, 2013
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Finalist, Minneapolis Creative City Challenge
In Collaboration with Futures North

LakeForms is a dynamic interactive public pavilion that invites residents and visitors into the Minneapolis Convention Center plaza, where they can relax, explore and learn about Minneapolis’s urban lakes. The pavilion is a digitally enhanced scale model of the lakes’ underwater topography. Their individual topographies are inverted and joined together to create a single sweeping, curvilinear form that becomes a striking and innovative architectural presence in downtown Minneapolis. Using custom-built “smart buoys” deployed in the lakes to gather data, the interior of the pavilion is transformed into an information rich environment, featuring a light display and soundscape about the lake’s ecology and summer use.

By symbolically bringing the lakes into the urban core, LakeForms realizes the city’s Convention and Visitors Association’s tagline, “City by Nature.” Visitors will have a chance to physically relax upon and enter a rendition of the city’s urban lakes, which are the city’s heart. The extension of the plaza lawn up into the pavilion structure draws attention to the city’s extensive green spaces and illustrates the city’s symbiotic relationship to nature.

http://lakeforms.tumblr.com/

Project Credits:
Futures North: Daniel Dean, John Kim, Adam Marcus, Molly Reichert
Sound Design + Programming: Jonathan Zorn, Will Kent-Daggett
Landscape Consultants: Travis Van Liere, Tory Christiansen, Carrie Christiansen
Structural Analysis: Ben Arcand
Fabrication Consultant: Sam Daley