© Todd Remington 2006

Placemaking:
Introduction to Feature

Architecture always has danced a line between art and pragmatism, providing necessary shelter while occasionally transcending commerce to become art. As such, architecture is the most powerful and influential of all art forms as it shapes our lives in innumerable ways. We gain a sense of place through architecture. One of this magazine's primary goals is to feature Minnesota's best new architecture. We often ask ourselves before publishing a new project: Does this building establish a meaningful place? This issue of Architecture Minnesota is no different as we look at work Minnesota architects are doing beyond the state boarder. All the featured projects are about placemaking, creating architectural environments that are meaningful to the client and users.

Getting Away: Feature Aricle

In Minnesota, owning a summer cottage is almost a birthwright. Yet the typical Minnesota cottage has grown to resemble in size and appointment a year-round house, with all the luxuries of suburbia. Apparently Minnesotans like to rough it-but not too rough.

A Minneapolis family has taken the concept of a summerhouse to new levels with their farmstead on several hundred acres of rolling, hilly terrain in western Wisconsin near Lake Pepin. The idyllic setting, secluded beyond paved roads, is a fantasy come true for the gentleman farmer. This work-in-progress looks as though it were plucked from the pages of Better Homes & Farms. Under the architectural direction of Todd Remington and his design team at Choice Wood Company in the Twin Cities, the farmstead has grown, piece by piece, to become not so much a farm but a playground for family and friends.

The clients, who have several small children, began to realize their dream in the country modestly enough when they bought the property, which included an old farmhouse, chicken coop and foundation from a barn. Since that time, they have added a six-stall horse barn with chicken coop, horse paddock, implement barn with attached silo for a home office, garden house/greenhouse with nearby smoke house, sheep barn, stone guest cottage overlooking a creek, and renovated farmhouse. That's only the beginning. In time, they plan to build a new Victorian farmhouse, small chapel, chalet on their private ski slope, and additional guest cottages.

Remington calls this a dream commission. And no wonder. He loves the outdoors, of which the job offers plenty, and he has the opportunity to complete an entire compound of buildings for a client that appreciates good design. For Remington, this is also an opportunity strengthen his firm's architectural division. Choice Wood, known more for custom construction and cabinetry than for architecture in its 16-year existence, is in the process of boosting its architectural division, which is now up to six people under Remington and president Nick Smaby's guidance. The farm's carefully crafted structures surely demonstrate that Choice Wood is up to the challenge of designing and building.

Remington and his team pulled on traditional agrarian references from the Lake Pepin region and Upper Midwest. There is nothing strikingly original about any of the buildings. Instead they offer the inviting comfort of familiarity. The two main buildings are the bright red implement barn and white stone and wood horse barn, both prominently in view upon approach along a gravel drive off an unpaved road. Remington oriented the buildings toward each other and the existing farmhouse, creating a grassy expanse between the three structures that is ideal for outdoor family activities. Built into the side of a hill, the horse barn is a true working facility in which six stalls on the lower level lead to a paddock out back. Hay storage and a chicken coop occupy the main level. Ubiquitous barn cats, in between rubbing up against visitor's legs, keep a tight look-out for mice.

Opposite the horse barn, the implement barn straddles two worlds, design for large machinery storage and human comfort. Remington stationed machinery along one side under an open 2-story-high ceiling. The other half, walled off from the utility storage, contains light storage on the main level and a fully equipped home fitness center on the second level. The fitness center leads to the weekend office in the attached silo, where the client has a perfect bird's-eye view of his growing farmstead.

Although plans eventually call for building a new farmhouse, the design team set about renovating the existing farmhouse, most significantly the kitchen. Here they expanded the room by extending a wall beyond a former back porch and creating one large kitchen. It's the perfect gathering space. Open and modern while still retaining its country feel. The kitchen's centerpiece is two massive rectangular tables designed by Sean Reynolds of Choice Wood, and fashioned from walnut trees taken from the site. These are the kind of tables every kitchen needs: big, heavy and permanent.

Perhaps the farm's strongest suit is its storybook charm. Take the stone garden house/greenhouse, built over an old stone foundation. Abutting a hill and surrounded by a rough-texture stone wall and picket fence, the garden house and garden feel set off from the rest of the farm, a quiet world onto itself. And then there's the first of several guest cottage. Reached via a wood foot-bridge over a spring on the far stretches of the farm, the 16-by-16-foot, stone and shingle guest cottage, designed by Reynolds, is something out of Hansel and Gretel with peaked roof, window-sill planters, stone floor, wood burning stone and steep ladder leading to a loft.

For this family, designing and building a farmstead from scratch is an opportunity to create its own storybook setting in the rolling countryside.

Eric Kudalis
Editor of Architecture Minnesota

Specializing in Residential Architecture: Homes, Cabins and Retreats