Julie Snow, FAIA

Presented by Julie Snow, FAIA, Founder, Snow Kreilich Architects, at GENERATE 2024 Practice + Design Conference.

Article by Jose Banuelos, a junior majoring in architecture at the College of Environmental Design, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Julie Snow, FAIA, NOMA, founded her studio in Minneapolis, MN, in 1995 and the firm has since grown into a nationally recognized and award-winning practice. Today, Snow Kreilich Architects focuses on producing architecture that preforms against multiple measures of design success, resulting in consistent design recognition for projects that reply on a fresh and intensive design investigation of every project. 

Julie started her presentation by offering a few big questions and supplying a way her studio has approached these topics.

She asked:

“How do we bring focus to our most elevated design aspirations, to inspire, to transform daily life, and to offer quiet moments of awe? How do we find transforamtive moments in our architecture?”

Julie continued:

“As a studio, we rely on the power of small ideas. The ability of small ideas to navigate the design process. I would suggest that the most critical design decisions may not be the singular big idea, but instead the small ideas that refine the project.”

Julie Snow’s keynote, “Architecture’s Trajectory”, focused on how small ideas can bring a project to life. In fact, towards the start of her talk, she announced the title of the talk was changed to “Small Ideas”.

In the projects she walked attendees through, the small ideas that refined their projects often derived from an extended context that she also mentioned. Most people would think about the topography or surrounding buildings when thinking about context in architecture, while Julie expanded on those underlying factors by adding social, cultural, and political context when considering the design process.

“Urban Stadium” was one of these projects in St. Lewis that considered the social and cultural history of the area to create a meaningful structure for the community with the development of Citypark Stadium. The small ideas create a sense of community through the portico style columns and the enclosing canopies. These small ideas are what bring the project together to focus on community and the energy inside and around the stadium. 

Other projects she presented also embody this principle of small ideas, bringing to life the main purpose of the project. “Ecotone” is a project involving community outreach through the renovation of a skating rink into a community driven space. The existing Steinberg Pavilion and Rink is a beloved public institution that opened in 1957 with a donation from the Steinberg Charitable Trust. The current project will renovate and expand the Frederick Dunn-designed mid-century modern building and site in east Forest Park, St. Louis.

“Industrial Nature” is designed with a focus on the natural landscape that was lost in history. 

The design reflects patterns of the river to inform spaces and landscape types. Five main features define the park: two broad tree-lined promenades, a river walk, a flexible green, and a building/plaza zone.

“Quietly Familiar” is a residential project in which the space and connection client could reminisce about his past. 

All of the projects presented achieved their purpose through the accumulation of small, yet impactful, ideas involving the many different and varied factors considered throughout the design process.