CO-OP Architecture

Here's a post about something we're helping with.

I assumed the "Tri" in the "Tri-Valley" School District was in regard to three communities: Crooks, Colton, and Lyons. It could be for three valleys too, but I don't know my rural northwest Minnehaha County geography as well as I'd like. Tri-Valley also includes some townships. Benton, Buffalo, Burk, Clear Lake, Grand Meadow, Taopi, Wayne townships. Here's some photos of the new elementary school in Crooks. In collaboration with Confluence, EGA, RISE, West Plains, Envision Kitchen, Puetz Construction.

Here’s Jenda, another member of our Friends & Citizens Summer Design Studio. She’s in Rapid City for the summer. Jenda is our first F&C intern from the University of Nebraska. Maybe our second intern, I forget. But we do have some team members who graduated from UNL in our office. She mentioned she likes the work of Carlo Scarpa, the architect. He was a student of regionalism, landscape, materials, history. Stuff that could translate well to an architectural language around here. She said she is interested in parametric design, which is a design method that uses algorithms. Maybe finding the crossroads between Scarpa and parametric design is an angle. She likes the Arctic Monkeys, which means something. She also went to the Black Hills for the summer without much previous exposure and is enjoying the hiking and outdoor lifestyle immensely. Jenda is talented and bringing good energy to our Rapid City office, and we’re glad to have her. I think she will be successful. We’re interested to see what she contributes to our internship program. Thanks.

Watertown, South Dakota, was founded in 1879 as a rail terminus when the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad reactivated part of a line it had constructed to Lake Kampeska. Despite the prominence of rivers and lakes in the area, the city was named after Watertown, New York, the hometown of brothers John E. Kemp and Oscar P. Kemp, two of the city's founders. The town's name was originally planned to be named Kampeska. During the 1880s, Watertown prospered as a transportation hub after the railroads had been extended further west. Along with several other cities, Watertown had been a candidate as capital of the new state of South Dakota, but it lost out to the more centrally located Pierre. On the upside, however, the high school - known as the Arrows - recently upgraded their school. It was built in 1962. We raised the roof in the commons. Literally. Not sure that 'figuratively' would even make sense. We created a new front door. And pretty much polished up everything in the entire school over the last few years. Thanks.

Now I want to introduce our next Friends & Citizens summer intern, Elissa. She’s from Aberdeen and a senior in architecture at NDSU. Currently, including interns, we have at least eight people in our office that hail from Aberdeen. Which is a lot from one town. We have six people from Sioux Falls. For comparison’s sake, we have one person from Wagner. Two from Watertown. One from Edgerton, Minnesota. One from Adel, Iowa. One from Monterrey, Mexico. One from Pereira, Colombia. Same for Garretson, Baltic, Tea, Platte. Milbank. Two from Hills, Minnesota, which seems like a lot on a per capita basis. Hills is pretty small. We have thirty some folks, and I haven’t named them all. Anyway, Elissa likes Canes Chicken Strip basket with lemonade. Which I’m not familiar with. I know they don’t have that in Aberdeen. But they do have lots of fast food. She also likes the band, Queen. Which is a decent choice. Not to be confused with Dairy Queen, which is also a decent choice. She’s curious about biophilic design, which has to do with how nature can influence design. She’s very bright and we’re happy to have her. Thanks.

I'm 90% certain that marketing didn't run these questions by HR, but not 100% and I'll pin it on them if this goes sideways. Anyway, our first Friends & Citizens Intern I want to introduce is Cheyenne. She's from Sioux Falls and is starting architecture grad school at SDSU. It's her second summer with us. Here's some Q & A with Cheyenne that definitely came from the marketing department. Q. Death row meal? A. Pasta from Italy, Godiva chocolate cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. Q. Biggest dystopia issue society faces? A. That the dollar menu at McDonald’s isn’t a thing anymore. Q. If you could have a beer with one historic figure, who would it be? A. Jesus or Caitlin Clark Q. Fashion trend you’re into? A. I REFUSE to get a lululemon fanny pack. Anyway, it goes on like that for a while. You get the picture. We're happy to have Cheyenne, she's very talented. I'll talk to marketing before I post the next intern profile. Thanks,

Spencer and Tom were speakers at the AIA National Conference on Architecture earlier this month. Jason took a selfie photo at a Nats game. And then there's an action shot of Brian, Spencer, and Tom on scooters at the Lincoln Memorial. Thanks.

I took this photo this morning while loading everyone from SF up in the '65 Ford Galaxie over by the Arc of Dreams. We're going I-90 West to grab the Rapid City crew at Dinosaur Park, then back across 14 (hard right at four corners baseball), up 83, maybe cut through Hoven and over on 12. Transmission and good Lord willing, this should connect us with our ABR team about 5 minutes before the downhome-downtown-Aberdeen-old-time-country-western-classic-rock-gospel-blues-roots-and-occasionally-jazz, good-n-loud-family-friendly-Main-Street-boogie-woogie-jamorama-extravaganza, summer-concert-series-spectacular-of-sights-n-sounds. I put a poster of that up. Hope to see you Thursday on Main Street in Aberdeen. Thanks.

Here's an update regarding Molly. She recently passed her NCIDQ exams. That's an exam that proves you know about codes, health, safety, and whatnot. It's a high knowledge bar to achieve for interior designers. But even better than all that, she's a great person. Thanks.

Our Friends & Citizens Summer Intern Studio met last week in Eagle Butte. That's where the internship will focus this year. We have seven interns spread among the Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and Aberdeen offices. Here are some photos from Eagle Butte. We'll introduce our interns over the next few weeks. We have a graphic designer, interior designer, and a handful of architecture students. We'll also be collaborating with the Famous interns at Fresh Produce. We'll introduce the results of the Eagle Butte internship in August. Thanks.