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client: Mall of America, 555 Worldwide Group
employer: DLRGroup
role: Project Architect | Designer | BIM
year: 2014
renderings: DLRGroup + Lifang CG
The initial 850,000 SF expansion includes the addition of a 2-level underground parking structure (600 spaces) plus 3 levels of retail, totaling almost 250,000 SF.
Above the retail development portion is a 180,000 SF, 7-story office tower (right) and a 342-key JW Marriott luxury brand hotel with a 15,000 SF ballroom and full amenities including meeting spaces, on-site spa, fitness center and a full-service restaurant and bar.
The architectural design portion of the project was developed by the DLR Group.
The interior design portion of the mall portion of this project was developed by a team of DLR, GH+A Design and Gabellini Sheppard.
The North Garden addition gives the Mall of America an iconic ‘front door’ while enlivening the exterior of this tourist destination.
A multi-scope project of this magnitude requires years of design and planning, and a large production team to make it happen.
I arrived on the team mid design development phase and worked on vignetted portions all over this development. From detailing out escalators, kiosks, interior displays & lighted accent panels, coordinating portions of the hotel interiors while helping to develop the tenant space design criteria – I went from task to task all over this project. Between official tasks that found their way into detailed bid and construction documents, much of the work was helping to develop and maintaining the complex linked network of Revit models used to complete this addition.
Many of these elements were revised or eliminated completely over the lifespan of the project, others became feature design elements.
At the point that I got involved with the design, we were implementing a large portion of the interior design documents. That is to say, the sketch and design direction provided by the interior design team was being refined, developed, detailed and submitted to the contracting team for pricing.
The process wasn’t nearly as linear as a small project. Bid packages were released sometimes weekly to keep the process moving forward, on multiple scopes of the design. Retail, Interiors, Hotel & later the office tower were all under design development and construction at the same time.
I even did an additional 3-story trash tower as an addition to the existing multi-phase design monster, but its hardly enough to include in a work sample / portfolio.
On the third level, is the interior ‘gateway’ to the entrance into the new addition. For this, the interiors group developed a design element that someone needed to model and work with the fabricators to install.
As I had the modeling experience in complex geometric forms – I was the only one in the company that could develop the Revit / Rhino model and create the detailing necessary to translate this sketch into a constructible element.
In the final installed version of the element – I had cleaned up the profile radius & the path that the form takes 3-4 times. This lowered the cost of fabrication as the complexity was reduced.
Model elements were exported, the entire volume was sent to the fabricator, and shop drawings were returned directly from the model.
A portion of the stepped skylight, was supposed to have an internally lit element with etched glass on the clerestory wall. Much research and detailing was required, provided and developed into a bid package, but sadly didn’t make it to the finish line.
Sales Kiosk
This sales kiosk was developed as a small-tenant open lease space The area for each tenant space includes a counter and cash-wrap zone for a relocatable sales space within the new addition with detailing that ties back to the overall aesthetics of the retail zone that it was planned for. Sadly, after I developed the Revit Family, and all associated detailing for its construction – it was scrubbed from the project.
There were many aspects of this project that provided design challenges at every turn to keep things interesting.
Revit doesn’t like curvilinear elements.
I discovered that the firm was a ‘late adopter’ of the software, which added to the complexity of accomplishing the task at hand. Half of the time the Revit model was being exported to AutoCAD to accomplish certain portions of the deliverables when it wasn’t necessary.
From my personal point of view – I’d been working either strictly in Revit or strictly in AutoCAD for 7 years at this point (and AutoCAD since I was 16), so the work-around ‘work flow’ wasn’t something that I was familiar or comfortable with.
Additionally – I was met with another common practice that I wasn’t familiar with. Design + modeling occurred in one, or several other platforms without the ability to easily translate this into a finished Revit model for production.
There was a massive pause in workflow, due to a lack of training and know-how. It was made readily apparent that he who controlled the geometry won the design race. Design files were being submitted and approved as renderings, without the ability to quickly execute construction drawings of approved features.
Especially on fast-tracked projects with deliverables every week – the front end work should be as close as possible to the software required to produce the end result. The 5-6 additional steps to get the base 3D Studio or Sketchup or non-BIM model element translated, was costing a LOT in work that wouldn’t have otherwise been necessary.
It’s one of the primary things that I would focus on shedding light on over the remainder of my time at DLR, and struggled with overcoming for the office.
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