With architecture firms that do the breadth of projects that OPN Architects does, it can sometimes be difficult to define a design philosophy, a look, an aesthetic that is often at the root of a design firm. The firm has taken on high-profile, high-concept projects such as collaborating on Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa, Iowa City; simple projects (which aren’t really simple) such as the Great Western Bank branch in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and historic projects such as the restoration of the 1876 Madison County Courthouse, Winterset, Iowa. OPN also designs athletic facilities using pre-engineered metal buildings and works across the spectrum of practice areas including educational, health, civic, historic, etc.
OPN Architects selects metal products using a collaborative, customer-centric, design-forward process
The Great Western Bank branch in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, showcases OPN Architects’ penchant for simple but exciting design that is appropriate for the customer, the environment and the location. Weathered steel wraps the low-slung building, giving it a strong sense of place while perforated screens control solar gains and keep operational costs low. “In this particular case, Corten steel was something we immediately talked about,” says David Sorg, AIA, LEED AP, WELL AP, principal. “We didn’t want a shiny object.” Photo: Wayne Johnson, Main Street Photography
Design Philosophy
Founded in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and with studios in Iowa City, Des Moines and Madison, Wis., OPN Architects does have a clear sensibility. David Sorg, AIA, LEED AP, WELL AP, who is a principal in the firm, articulates it this way: “We don’t like fussy buildings, unnecessary corners and curves. We really want something that is pure and simple and really speaks to the client’s goals and objectives.”
Dan Thies, AIA, LEED AP, joined OPN months after its founding in 1979, becoming a partner in 1985 and president in 2000. He underscores the design intent Sorg defined. “We view our work as very contextual,” he says. “We tend to have some more traditional design solutions, but the preponderance of our work is more contemporary and modern. There are ways to interpret context and look at a design idea that complements that context without just duplicating it.”
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, New Haven, Conn., and OPN Architects. The tiered, metal-clad building replaces the iconic Max Abramovitz-designed auditorium lost when the Iowa River flooded in 2008. “We wanted to honor the former project by creating another building of equal quality,” says Dan Thies, AIA, LEED AP, principal. Photo: Jeff Goldberg, Esto
A Midwestern Firm
Sorg says that philosophy is part of the firm’s Midwestern DNA. “Our vernacular when tied to Midwestern roots, is—if you think about how rural design is done—beautiful. It’s simple and it’s responsive to the program. What is it trying to do? It’s a very honest expression of what it is. I would say that’s what drives our design because our best designs are the purest, most honest expressions of what they are. That means we avoid gratuitous design moves. And, it has a singular design voice and it’s very well edited. The Midwestern DNA, as we see it, is really beautiful, simple buildings.”
OPN Architects was founded the Tuesday after Memorial Day in 1979. The three founding partners were Scott Olson, Tom Popa and Jim Novak, AIA. None of the three founders are with the firm anymore. Novak left to start his own firm, which is still practicing in Cedar Rapids. Olson retired in the mid- ’90s and Popa retired to do, as Thies says, “something more deliberate related to design.” Over the years, the partnerships have evolved, but the firm has grown organically and now boasts more than 100 employees across the four studios. As a rule, OPN doesn’t identify a headquarters location.
Metal in Design
The use of metal building materials, whether metal components or pre-engineered metal buildings systems, is completely project specific at OPN Architects. The firm specifies a lot of metal, but it doesn’t necessarily default to metal products over any other product. The firm’s design process begins with a sketch to get the massing. “In the old days, it would have been a chipboard or basswood model,” says Joe Wallace, AIA, project architect. “We don’t have a sense of materials at that point. It’s purely massing.”
When selecting materials, Wallace says, “Obviously aesthetics is one thing, but performance, longevity and budget are important considerations. Each project may be a little different. It really depends on the project and the product context. We usually have some metal on almost all of our projects. We may use it in an unexpected or atypical way, or bend it to create the cladding.”
Wallace points to the DTE Energy’s Central Energy Plant, Dearborn, Mich., as an example. “We wanted pre-cast for the envelope, but we clad it with metal for performance and aesthetics. And, those two systems have a synergy that is both industrial, and light and airy.”
OPN Architects designed DTE Energy’s Central Energy Plant, Dearborn, Mich., whose pre-cast concrete envelope grounds it. But the employment of lightweight metal louvers supplied by A. Zahner Co., Kansas City, Mo., softens the form, making it both substantial and approachable. “It is both industrial, and light and airy,” says Joe Wallace, AIA, project architect. Photo: Cory Klein Photography
Design Excellence
Three members of the firm sit on the design excellence group and help educate and direct the firm’s approach to sustainability issues, recognizing, as Sorg says, “great design and sustainable design are one and the same.” Sorg leads the group, which also includes Danielle Hermann, AIA, associate principal, and Tate Walker, AIA, LEED Fellow, WELL AP, sustainability director. OPN has signed on to the 2030 Challenge and has more than 30 LEED Accredited Professionals in the firm.
“The sophistication of buildings systems has exponentially changed in the 40 years we’ve been practicing,” says Thies. “It’s due in part to the technology that’s available. It’s due in part to the evolution of materials we’re using. A big driver is designing sustainably and responsibly. Our design excellence program equally represents both design and sustainability.”
Wallace points to the high level of recycled or re-use content in some building materials as one reason why he may select a metal building product over another product. “We’ll design and use whatever we feel is the best material or cladding for the project,” he says. “Insulated metal panels, metal composite panels, pre-engineered metal buildings. We do specify them and we do use them. It depends on the project type.”
He connects the material selection process part of design with sustainability. “Sustainability is baked into our design process,” he says. “Right up there with aesthetics and performance.”
Collaboration
One of the strongest senses of identity for the firm is the importance it places on collaboration, which can have a huge influence on the design process and material selection. When it published a book in celebration of its 40th anniversary in 2019, the firm called it “Collaboration.”
“We have been fortunate, in a holistic sort of way,” says Thies, “to have had great collaboration with clients, various institutions in our cities, our consultants, development and building partners and very notable design practices. We wanted to celebrate this sense of collaboration and how we’ve learned from other architects. We feel it’s a mutual learning exchange.”
Two major projects that were the result of close collaboration were the Hancher Auditorium, which was done with Pelli Clarke Pelli, New Haven, Conn., and the United States Courthouse in Cedar Rapids, which was done with William Rawn Architects, Boston. Both feature extensive use of metal cladding. Speaking of the courthouse, Thies says, “Our objective was to design a 100-year building, select materials and systems that reflect the federal architecture aesthetic in a more contemporary and modern pattern.”
Collaboration works within the firm and not just outside it. “Our design approach is collaborative,” says Thies. “It’s a team approach. It isn’t who has the best idea. It isn’t where it comes from but that the best idea wins. Metal plays an important role in some of these solutions because of the flexibility and variety it affords. There is a limitless sort of way you can utilize metal from the metal itself to the texture to the patina.”
What all of this means—the focus on sustainability, the careful material selection, honest express of design—is driven by a simple motivation within OPN. “We are a service-based firm,” says Wallace. “We want to make our clients happy. First and foremost, our mission statement is tied to architecture and the human experience. When you boil it down, the architect’s impact is to unite and inspire to elevate the human experience.”