Souliyahn Keobounpheng
During and after my 7 years of architecture school, I worked for a large architectural firm, Ellerbe Becket for +6 years, doing master planning on the Mayo Clinic campus in Rochester Minnesota. While there, I also worked on office skyscrapers and large medical facilities. After Ellerbe Becket, I went to work for David Salmela.
I apprenticed under Salmela Architect for almost 18 years, and got really good at residential architecture and construction. I spent a lot of time on job sites. David won a few State and National AIA design awards, so it was really fun to be around for it. My tenure with Salmela Architect crystalized my design thinking and sensibilities. While there, I realized that design execution is as imperative as design ideas. I've noticed that Good Architects are great at design, but lack an in-depth understanding of the craft of making a building. Great Architects can do both. These 2 things cannot be separated if you want to actually MAKE architecture.
Moving forward; although i had worked with Shane Coen the entire time while at Salmela Architect, I decided to joined Shane and his team at coen+partners, a visionary landscape architecture design and urban design practice. Its broad overview approach and, a sense of commitment to craft, was exactly what i needed to learn about Landscape Architecture. During my stint at coen+partners, I learn that Architecture was part of a larger ecosystem of Landscape Architecture, and that both their visions, when in harmony, created the very best work.
I joined MG McGrath, a specialty construction company, to learn about the craft of making a building's facades in glass, metal and stone. I spent +6 years there, and it gave me the opportunities to work on a lot of Architecture that was designed by many well known Architects such as; Frank Gehry, Calatrava, DSR, Morphosis, Marlon Blackwell, and Gensler, just to name drop a few. I considered my time at MG McGrath as my Continuing Education, my PHD course, if you will. At this scale of Architecture and it's Execution, I realized design is inseparable from the Technology that generates it or produces it. Its an integrated workflow between Technologies, Design, Documentations, Fabrications, assemblies, and Installations. I personally executed productions of projects and also led a focused team of 3D modelers, and drafters to achieve physical results in fabrications, the whole of the project, from “soup to nuts”.
The shift from large medical projects to residential architecture and landscape architecture expanded my lens, the last +6 years at MG McGrath allowed me to see the design from a building industry perspective. As I come full circle and well rounded in my “education” I am inspired by the continuous workflow between the many disciplines. I have a fresh perspective that combines broad visionary ideas, critical eye for design details and is familiar with how it all gets executed.
BIO
Souliyahn is a strong believer in utilizing state of the art technology to manifest Great Designs, from idealizations to fabrications and installations.
Souliyahn is Architect-trained with over twenty years of dynamic experience in the design/building industry, Souliyahn’s critical and creative mind can translate across disciplines. After almost 18 years as David Salmela’s right-hand realizing award-winning architecture and the past +6 years as a technical fabrication designer/drafter/production and team-manager on highly technical projects by design firms such as; Calatrava, Frank Gehry, Diller-Scofidio, Alfonso Architects, Morphosis, HDR, Marlon Blackwell, and Gensler projects while with MG McGrath, Souliyahn possesses a unique combination of experience and skills that are centered on actualizing an architectural, or designed vision in the factory and on site in the built environment.
Realizing that technology can aid in Great Design and conception of Architectural ideas, and also in how they get built from the factory floor, to mobilizing construction crews for installation in the field.
Born in Vientiane, Laos and arriving in Minneapolis on February 1st, 1979 as an 8-year old refugee with his family, Souliyahn is a US citizen and 44+ year resident of Minnesota who brings a grounded and imaginative perspective to his work that is rooted in understanding US culture in the context of a wider world view. Souliyahn believes that idea creations and generations in concert with technological innovation and “how things are actually made” in the shop, will be a disruptive game changer in the design and architectural profession.
