800 Washington

This apartment project in downtown Minneapolis demanded a complex approach to its facade design. Although early conceptual drawings depicted a randomized facade with large stretches of both glass and concrete, the reality would have to do more than look aesthetically pleasing. A mix of windows, concrete panels, and fluted concrete panels would have to be distributed across the facade such that: A) every apartment unit had a window, B) every joint where an interior wall met the exterior wall was covered by a concrete panel, C) the overall building maintained a glazing ratio of roughly 60%, and D) the building still had a look of semi-random panel placement.

To accomplish this, the envelope is sliced up to define curves for each of the floors, those curves are broken down into segments representing the units of the building, and then an algorithm subdivides the unit segments into panels and extrudes those segments to the floor below. From there, the coordinate data of these surfaces can be used to place pre-built facade elements. Breaking down the floor curves into segments representing each unit allows the algorithm to ensure each unit has a defined window-to-panel ratio - we wouldn’t want some units with full height windows and others with none at all!