Space Station

Wynne Yelland and Paul Neseth are partners in Minneapolis’s design firm Locus Architecture. They recently set down what looks like a spacecraft over by Cedar Lake. It is a polycarbonate-walled, metal-roofed, four-bed, four-bath, postmodernist machine for living. They call their sleek structure Nowhaus 01, and it stands out from the ramblers and cottages on its block like a pink Prada frock at a PTA meeting.

From the outside, behind the translucent sheathing panels, a passerby can discern the indistinct shapes of billboards—hey, is that a PT Cruiser ad trapped in there?—recycled as weatherproof insulation. Inside, 3440 St. Paul Avenue is a beautiful, harmonious house. Daylight streams through a corner bank of windows into the gracious two-story living room. The colors are warm; the walls are birch veneer paneling and slate, set off with inventive industrial details. A steel staircase hangs in midair like a sculpture. One bedroom window offers an artistic view of tall pine trees; another frames an intriguing composition of the copper gutters on the neighboring house.

It could be the dream home of art-loving hipsters. In fact, it’s strictly the architects’ vision, unencumbered by the questionable taste or idiosyncracies of an actual client. Whiles most houses are designed like a personal ad, not to attract anyone specifically but only to avoid rejection, Nowhaus was created to showcase Locus Architecture’s style, generate buzz—and ultimately, of course, snag a buyer. With an asking price just south of one million dollars and its radical chic look, Yelland and Neseth concede that it’s a house in search of a very special buyer.

Some neighbors have reacted with gasps of admiration, others with snorts of derision. Jay Isenberg, a residential and commercial architect who lives across the alley, is enthused. The Locus partners are “stretching ideas, pushing boundaries, using different materials in new ways,” said Isenberg, who has lived for twenty years in a traditional cottage he designed. “My design motif is far different from theirs, but I respect what they do. Without taking risks, architecture would never move forward.” He has invited the Locus partners to speak at the architecture courses he teaches at the University of Minnesota.

Nowhaus’s next-door neighbor, Dave Alan, is irritated. A homebuilder responsible for seven high-end houses on St. Paul Avenue, he is exercised by the alien presence beside him. He summed up his reaction in multiple-choice form: “What the hell is that?”; “You’re kidding!”; and “When’s he going to paint it?”

While Locus had no legal obligation to present its plans to the neighborhood association for approval, Alan feels it was disrespectful of the firm not to explain what it was planning, initiate a dialogue, and consider the residents’ comments—a process Alan said he has been through himself. “These neighborhood committees have a lot of cool people on them. Why wouldn’t I want to listen to their viewpoints? What is Locus Architecture really committed to—building relations in the community, or making a statement in architecture?” Still, Alan gives the designers their due. “On the inside, I think it’s pretty cool. It really is. I could see myself living in that home.”—Colin Covert