At Minneapolis-based PKA Architecture, each design project is a collaborative labor of love. The award-winning architecture and design firm has a special interest in creating homes, lofts, and cabins that feel unique to each client—and incorporate sustainable features that will last.
Many of the firm’s designers and principals come to their work from a lifelong love of architecture. For a group that creates plenty of vacation escapes, it’s no surprise that their path originated in travel. For managing principal and designer Kristine Anderson, she fell in love with the field after childhood weekends spent exploring California with her family. Associate principal and architect Andrew Edwins grew up with an architect father who made a love of buildings part of their family life. “It wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized it wasn’t normal to go on vacation just to visit buildings,” he says.
Now, the group selects projects with clients who share an interest in design. Inspiration comes from references as wide ranging as music, art, materials, location, and more — but most importantly, the team seeks to understand exactly who the client is on a human level, and learn each homeowner’s story in order to create a truly personal home.
One favorite project? A new modern home on 40 acres of lakeside land in central Minnesota. “Right from the beginning, we knew this would be a special process and home, as the clients’ proposed descriptors included words like imposing, bewildering, textured, purposely imperfect,” recalls Kris. “It was a magical collaboration and together, with the interior designer, the team created a home that feels like a piece of art nested with the landscape.”
We talked to PKA Architecture’s Kris Anderson to learn more about the project here, which they describe as a “sun-soaked, serene hideaway” for a couple downsizing from a nearby home. PKA worked with interior design firm Martha Dayton Design to create a lakeside vacation home that still felt as homey and personal as the clients’ former longtime residence. Read on to learn more about this modern lake escape.
Give us the backstory on this home.
There was a common sensibility of the modern design goals between PKA and the homeowners. They knew exactly what they wanted and enjoyed the process of the variable design considerations along the way. The site had a great view of the lake, and the constraints of the property actually served as a great inspiration for the basic design of the home.
The homeowners were downsizing from a home that they had lived in for decades. Their desire for this new home was something that was livable for two empty nesters, but capable of having the entire family return and live comfortably together. The site has a great view of the lake, but also has exposure to the road. One of the main goals of the design was to give a sense of privacy when in the home without compromising light or views to the lake.
How did you approach the project?
We started this project in much the same way as any other: We sat with the clients and discussed not only what they were looking for practically, but also what felt like home to them. This led to different iterations of the plan and arrangement of spaces to meet their needs—bedrooms for the grown children, a pool at the same level as the main living spaces, walkout below. From the beginning, it became apparent that one piece of art was going to be critical to the arrangement of the spaces. We incorporated this location into plans and models from the beginning so that it would be displayed in an impactful, but natural way.
With the team at Martha Dayton Design working on the interiors, we developed a simple, yet refined palette of materials that feel both comfortable but with a touch of elegance.
What aspects of this project were most rewarding?
Projects like this are always rewarding because we get to really flex our detailing muscles. It is always so much harder to make things look simple, and being able to create something that feels effortless in the end takes so much planning and foresight. But seeing it come together, and seeing the clients appreciate the effort, is what matters the most.
What aspects were challenging?
What took effort was thinking through the best ways to detail and build the various window conditions on the house. We wanted the lakeside to feel light, which meant minimizing the profiles of the roofs as much as possible. This led to some complicated coordination between framing, window treatments, window frames, and roofing. The channel glass stair volume was perhaps the most challenging. We knew that we wanted the translucent glass to be the focus, so minimizing the structure as much as possible involved many iterations of details to find the right balance of aesthetics, structure, and constructability.
What are your favorite details of this design?
One of the most impactful details of the design is in the primary bath. Here, the channel glass wall floods the bathroom with light, but gives privacy to the neighbors. As the wall faces south, the sun projects shadows of the trees on the glass throughout the day, creating a fantastic play of shadows that animate the space and give it an ever-changing life. Beyond the architectural detail of the bath, a few other elements stand out as interior designer Martha Dayton’s favorites—particularly the curated mix of contemporary furnishings, one-of-a-kind finds from sources such as 1stDibs, and custom pieces made by local artisans. Highlights include the buffet in the dining room and the bespoke TV wall in the family room—an inventive composition of wood, steel, and leather-wrapped elements.
What ideas from this project can readers apply to their own space?
Little details can have huge impacts. For instance, we could have kept the structure in the walls of channel glass, but pulling the structure into the interior magnified the effect of the wall on the interior and exterior spaces. Similarly, having the head of the windows set above the ceiling opened the interior spaces. Both gave a sense of lightness to the glass walls and the design as a whole.
And finally: What’s one tip only a pro will tell you?
Great builders are good at what they do, but nothing is as straight or plumb in the real world as when we draw it in CAD. Anticipate this, and plan for areas of tolerance where the realities of construction can be hidden. In a simpler, modern design such as this home, trim can’t be used to cover up the intersection of materials. Using shadow lines or small reveals between materials or different constructions is a great way to allow for some slack in a more minimal setting. In the library, the steel insets in the wood cabinet frame have a small reveal between the oak frames. This not only provides a little bit of visual depth, but also allows just enough room to install and square up the steel inside the wood.
