Walking Tour of Downtown Minneapolis

Preregistration required

This tour will focus on the nationally significant buildings and spaces in downtown Minneapolis and their relationship to the academic institutions. The tour will include University of St. Thomas, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis Public Library, Fhima’s (Forum Cafeteria Art Deco), IDS Center, Foshay Tower, Wells Fargo Center, Minneapolis City Hall, Butler Square, Guthrie Theatre, and the Stone Arch Bridge. And we can’t forget the Minneapolis skyways. Bring your walking shoes and the zeal to have fun while learning!

Learning Outcomes:

1. Buildings that have reduced carbon meet sustainability goals
2. Buildings designed with accessibility goals
3. Buildings designed for health, safety, and welfare of occupants
4. Buildings that inspire a community

Small and Mighty: Targeted Transformative Renovations for Student Success

Preregistration required

Many large institutions have outdated and underused facilities that are limiting their ability to reach their strategic plans and student success goals. By reimagining aging facilities, campuses are better suited to serve future-forward needs, such as advancing academic excellence, meeting equitable accessibility standards, achieving environmental goals, and reducing operations and maintenance backlogs. This short walking tour, located on the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus, will showcase how the intentional planning and design of three small and mighty transformative renovations resulted in a significant impact on the campus experience and student success.

We will explore this across: 1. Student Life: Sanford Hall Dining and Kitchen Renovations 2. Academic Excellence: Murphy Hall Learning Labs, Library, and Broadcast Studio Renovations 3. Health and Wellness: Fieldhouse Exterior Rehabilitation, Surface Replacement, and Inclusive Restrooms

Join us to gain real life insights about the University’s goals as well as the processes and tools for transforming existing spaces into state-of-the-art facilities that enhance academic programs, student services, community partnerships, and environmental goals.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess an existing facility’s potential to advance an institution’s vision as well as strategic and academic plans with engagement methods, technical tools, and financial analysis.
2. Determine the limitations of existing buildings associated with multiple construction types and eras as well as academic program needs.
3. Develop appropriate building/space programs that create equitable access for students and increase student success.
4. Identify and define programs and design approaches that create community/campus connections and enhance academic and industry partnerships.

Normandale Community College – Recent Renovations

Preregistration required

As the largest two-year college in the Minnesota and the second-largest in the state’s university system, Normandale Community College has seen strong enrollment and growth. Multiple recent phased renovations over the last five years have included:

• Reconfiguration of student services into a one-stop, student-facing hub
• Update to general classrooms and student study space
• New Interprofessional Education Center, including Dental Hygiene and Nursing Simulation labs
• Newly relocated café and student amenities
• Updated wayfinding and signage throughout campus
• Relocated help desk and IT support
• Updated space for students with disabilities and testing needs
• Updated faculty and staff workspace
• Modernization of campus infrastructure to reduce energy use and update systems

Tour attendees will learn how the various projects have been conceived, sequenced, designed and built to transform Normandale’s existing campus, all without adding square footage to the building.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Plan and design for integrating student services through the use of a service model edesign framework to foster student success.
2. Revitalize existing space through phased, strategic, interior renovations to reduce deferred maintenance and support student enrollment growth.
3. Support the growth of 2-year workforce training opportunities for disciplines like nursing, dental hygiene and other in-demand fields.
4. Create a welcoming, inclusive, and student-centered environment that prioritizes student needs across a low-income, first-generation and racially diverse student body.

Macalester College: Campus Renewal and Reinvestment

Preregistration required

Macalester College is a nationally-ranked liberal arts college that offers an intimate, undergraduate-centered education with access to the broader urban Twin Cities. This tour will highlight recently completed work, including new construction and renovations, that focus on the College’s commitment to academic distinction, global citizenship, social responsibility and community well-being. Featured stops include the following:

• Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, a large scale phased renovation and new construction project (completed between 2012-2019), for interdisciplinary academic space for Music, Studio Art, Theater, Dance, and general classroom use
• Recent renovations at the Wallace Library, including new spaces for student services (2025) and a new maker space (2017)
• Remaking of the college’s Campus Center (2024), including updated food service/dining space, revitalized student study space, student organization support space and meeting rooms
• Newly-completed student space at Kagin Commons (2025), including a community kitchen to promote and support student cultural organizations
• A new Residence Hall and Welcome Center (2027), currently under construction, designed to provide a new front door to the College and expand the capacity of on-campus housing for juniors and seniors

Throughout the tour, tour guides will showcase the College’s commitment to sustainability through reinvestment in existing infrastructure and its ability to maximize the use of its footprint through creative, flexible and student-centered spaces.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand how to balance small-scale renovations and remodel projects with large scale new building projects to maximize the impact of campus investment, in alignment with the college’s priorities and its strategic plan.
2. Recognize how recently updated student life and student service spaces can increase student collaboration and engagement, leading to stronger student retention and satisfaction.
3. Apply sustainable design principles across multiple projects of varying scales, including reinvestment in existing campus infrastructure and renewal of existing assets.
4. Observe interdisciplinary academic trends, including formal and informal flexible learning spaces, cross-disciplinary performance and rehearsal spaces, and student support spaces.

University of Minnesota East Bank and St. Paul Campus Tour

Preregistration required

Immerse yourself in an ‘on the ground’ tour of the diverse and vast UMN Twin Cities campus. Join UMN planning, design and sustainability staff as well as key contributors from many project teams to learn about recent campus planning and capital investment on both the historic East Bank and St Paul locations of the UMN Twin Cities campus. We’ll begin with a presentation touching on campus planning as well as programmatic and design challenges in specific capital projects. We’ll tour on foot/ roll through the NRHP Old Campus and Northrop Mall Historic Districts, and travel by bus to the St Paul location to understand the innovation and partnership-driven plans to transform that campus.

Themes of the tour will include

1. Capital funding strategies and timelines
2. Adaptive re-use of NRHP-listed historic buildings in NRHP districts
3. Programmatic mandates that drove a variety of approaches to design of physical spaces as well as construction challenges and complexities and how they were solved.
4. Approach to climate action and energy utility planning on multiple UMN campuses Participants from the integrated project teams (design and construction) will speak to the details of projects at Fraser Hall.

Planning topics will include capital reinvestment strategy, landscape and design guidelines tools as well as climate action and energy infrastructure planning, all led by University staff.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand the long-term evolution of a land grant institution in the context of economic and demographic factors shaping a rapidly evolving urban area.
2. Consider adaptive re-use strategies for historic buildings balanced against powerful programmatic mandates, focusing on recent renovations.
3. Experience the relationship between built and unbuilt open spaces, and observe how the campus community relates to these places.
4. Learn from stakeholders key chanllenges and successes in delivering projects.

University of Minnesota – Health Sciences Education Center

Preregistration required

Located in the heart of campus, this project opened in April 2020 as a prominent, new identity for the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center where inter-professional learning meets patient centered care. As the only research University in the state of Minnesota, the Medical School includes 5 schools, 6500+ students across medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and public health. Creating a new health professions hub, the renovated 50,000SF and a 138,000 SF expansion, creating a new destination for the Health Sciences Education Center. Expansive renovations in the existing building to meaningfully integrate daylight and immersive experiences created an integrally connected complex. The building fosters unparalleled student-teacher interaction, state-of-the art immersive simulation suites, knowledge creation and knowledge management spaces, as well as social learning spaces outside of the classroom. At the root the project brings people from all health professions together under one roof to connect each Health Sciences program, inside and outside the classroom.

Multi-level classrooms support small and large group collaborative learning and are configured to promote innovations in learning. Through a series of connecting design elements, including plazas, tunnels to adjacent hospital, skyways to existing buildings, and corridors, the Health Sciences Education Center promotes human connections by using daylit circulation spaces to connect to adjacent health science buildings and neighboring hospital. Tour route includes stops throughout the 7-story expansion and adjacent renovated PWB building, including: Inter-professional collaboration spaces, Adaptable teaching and learning spaces, Immersive Simulation spaces.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Inter-professional education – why it’s important and how to ensure success.
2. Planning for current and future health science district; integrating and expanding within an existing district.
3. Engaging with existing campus context, enhancing internal connections, and creating a new front door.
4. Major renovation interventions to physically bring buildings together to create an immersive simulation destination.