Past Projects : 2004 - 2007 : Residential Design in Minneapolis

The City of Minneapolis has long been known for its leafy residential neighborhoods full of detached houses and lower-density apartments. Today, however, increasing housing demand and rising costs have created a need for higher density housing. As new housing is built in existing neighborhoods, residents are concerned about the effect on the quality of their environment. In many downtown neighborhoods, entire mixed-use districts are being built on former rail or commercial land that has served as parking lots for the past several decades.

To help discussion about these issues, Design Center staff worked with Community Planning and Economic Development staff to create PowerPoint presentations about residential design in the city of Minneapolis. The materials emphasize design factors, and were created for community planners to use in a variety of situations: with communities, other city staff, elected officials and developers. The presentations cover urban design, neighborhood character, large home additions, housing intensification, and factory-built housing.

These presentations are arranged by topic, described below. Several topics have a number of supporting presentations that contain additional detail and examples. See the specifications at the bottom of this page for advice on downloading and using the presentations for help in deciding what to download and how to use it.

Start Show contains a brief introduction and a main menu that links to all of the files. Every presentation page contains a link back to this menu, so it is recommended to download a copy of the Start Show.

Download the Start Show (2MB) | notes view (224KB)

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Urban Design provides an overview of the field. Urban design is described as an overlapping specialty within architecture, landscape architecture, and planning that is involved in making better places for people by balancing many competing goals: physical form, functional needs, social issues, economic issues, community values, and environmental sustainability. Supporting shows provide additional detail and examples of Approaches, History, Implementation, Scales, and Techniques.

Download a folder with all six of the urban design presentations at once (18.1MB)

Download the individual presentations:

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Neighborhood Character discusses the physical design of neighborhoods, why neighborhood character is important, and what questions neighborhoods can ask to evaluate how new development will affect the existing character. Numerous examples are included to prompt discussion and to practice analyzing physical character. The notes version of this presentation has a number of useful discussion guides.

Download the presentation:

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Bump-outs, Add-ons, Pop-tops, Up-and-outs, Tear-downs, and Fill-ins examines the trend toward major home modifications and discusses its causes, design issues, and strategies for success. Five types of projects, with examples, are described and shown in the main presentation. Each supporting show includes local examples of a specific type, presented through a thumbnail menu on the first slide.

Download a file containing all six of the Bump-outs, Add-ons, Pop-tops, Up-and-outs, Tear-downs, and Fill-ins presentations at once (63.2MB)

Download the individual presentations:

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Housing Intensification discusses trends and opportunities toward higher-density housing in Minneapolis. Different housing types, areas planned for housing intensification, and examples of new, higher intensity housing are included. Supporting presentations add details and examples of different densities, design issues, housing types, and city-designated higher intensity housing areas.

Download a file containing all five of the Housing Intensification presentations at once (63.2MB)

Download the individual presentations:

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Factory-built Housing is an overview of the current state and trends in manufactured housing, with an emphasis on design character. Five main types are outlined, along with the industry’s history, current ideas, and sources for further information.

Download the Factory-built housing presentation:

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Minneapolis Reference Maps contains 4 maps referred to in other presentations: The land use plan, neighborhood and communities, wards, and a street map. These were downloaded from the City of Minneapolis web site in February 2003 and are included here for convenience.

How to Download and Use these Presentations

Specifications and Hyperlinks
Presentations MUST BE STORED IN A SINGLE FOLDER that is titled “MPLN_PPT” in order for links to other presentations to work. The presentations contain two kinds of hyperlinks: to slides in the same presentation, and to slides in other presentations.

For maximum usability, download all 21 files and store them in the same folder (named MPLN_PPT). All the links should work.

For medium usability, download all the files in one topic area, such as urban design or housing intensification. Place them in a single folder (named MPLN_PPT). This will make most of the links work.

For minimum usability, each file can be viewed without the others, but hyperlinks to other files will not work (links within that file will work).

Files sizes are large, ranging from 1 to 27MB. Downloading could take a very long time on a slower internet connection.

The PowerPoint presentation files are in compressed 'zip file' format. You need to have software that will allow you to decompress (unzip) these files.

The software that Macs need to zip and unzip files is called ZipIt and can be found (along with details about the software) at <http://www.maczipit.com/index.html>

The software that PCs use is called WinZip and the website is <http://www.winzip.com/>

The "notes view" of each file includes further information and a script for each of the presentations (pdf format).

Image resolution is 200 pixels per inch.

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Copyright and Attribution
The University of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis have ownership of these presentations. Users are welcome to download and use these presentations for educational purposes with attribution.

Status: Complete

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Copyright Metropolitan Design Center, 2007. All rights reserved.