Day's firm one of eight envisioning a future for East Lansing

calendar icon10 Nov 2014    

University of Nebraska–Lincoln Professor of Architecture Jeff Day’s architecture firm Min|Day is one of eight firms that were invited to envision a future for East Lansing, Michigan. Their work is part of an exhibition that opens Friday, Nov. 14 at the Broad Art Museum in East Lansing.

“East Lansing 2030:  Collegeville Re-Envisioned” will run through April 26, 2015, at the Broad Art Museum, which is the contemporary art museum of Michigan State University.

The exhibition invited architects, landscape architects and urban designers from across the country to join in envisioning a future East Lansing. From November 2013 to July 2014, each month a new designer presented their past work and ideas as a discussion of themes as they related to East Lansing. The designers developed speculative projects set in East Lansing culminating in this exhibition of the completed designs.

Min|Day’s proposal is titled “Gather Make Live Grow Play.”

Their project description states, “Strong boundaries—campus edges, major roadways and the river—both define East Lansing and separate the community. This project proposes a series of spatial and experiential connections that tie the city to the MSU campus and unite Michigan Avenue and East Grand River Avenue with the Red Cedar River. These linkages build on existing uses and amenities to generate density and strengthen identity. Extending from downtown to Spartan Stadium, Gather hosts mass celebration and events. Make fosters cultural production and technological innovation. Live brings residents of all ages together. Grow unites Valley Court Park and Beal Botanical Garden. Play catalyzes development through linked public open spaces."

Day and his partner, E.B. Min, were joined on the project by College of Architecture students Kaitlin Blasing, Kevin Bukowski, Junxing Wu and Micah Davis, along with Min|Day architect and UNL Architecture Alumnus Dennis Krymuza (B.S.D 2011, M.Arch 2013).

Based out of San Francisco, California, and Omaha, Nebraska, Min|Day architecture draws on Min’s and Day’s backgrounds in art, landscape and architecture to provide informed, flexible design for a wide range of clients, sites and projects, ranging from individuals to art institutions, urban to rural settings and furniture to large buildings.

Day, the Omaha-based principal of the firm is professor of architecture and landscape architecture and director of the architecture program at UNL. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1988 and received a master of architecture from U.C. Berkeley in 1995.

In addition to Min|Day, the other participants in the exhibition include UrbanLab of Chicago, Illinois; PLY Architecture of Ann Arbor, Michigan; DIGSAU of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; LEVENBETTS Studio of New York City; WXY Studio of New York City; Bionic Landscape of San Francsico, California; and Stoss of Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information, visit https://go.unl.edu/el2030.