Solar Plaza Fargo:This new downtown destination is a place to congregate, shop, eat, live and work. It also generates its own solar power. The Solar Plaza's unique sculptural shape, with a sweeping solar panel surface and curvaceous wraparound glass, adds a new dimension to North Dakota's progressive development of renewable resources.
The site design philosophy seeks to retain the pedestrian scale experience at street level, especially the Broadway approach, while consolidating its vertical mass with existing tall buildings on 5th Street N. This creates an open site feeling with minimal impact on the low rise nature of lower Broadway. Street level mass is kept to two-story brick retail, thereby maintaining the Broadway storefront feeling. A roll of glass sweeps upward along 3rd Avenue N and 5th Street N with low mass transparency, providing interior daylight without the heat or glare of direct sun.
With five upper residential floors featuring favorable northern light, the Solar Building offers ideal space as live/work studios for artists, photographers, crafts people and the growing market of telecommuters. The floors are easily configurable for either standard apartments or single floor and duplex studios. Office space occupies the third story plus three floors of the US Bank tower. The US Bank building remains onsite with existing bank operations on both street and second levels. Drive-through banking also remains, situated under the Solar Building overhang adjacent to the bank.
The office lobby sits midblock on 3rd Avenue N while a secure lobby for residents is located near the north corner of 5th Street N. Both can also be accessed from the retail lobby. Parking for 400 cars lies below the Solar Building and plaza, accessed from 5th Street N next to the bank drive-through, thereby limiting all vehicle traffic to 5th Street N. Retail stores, services and a restaurant serve the public, building residents and offices though both storefront and building lobby access. The third onsite structure frames the circular civic plaza with its arc shape. Its single story pedestrian scale is ideal for a cafe or small restaurant and walk-by orientated sales.
The large plaza contains ample room for benches, cafe tables, chairs, plantings and perhaps a central fountain or sundial. It offers an inviting extension to the Fargo Street Fair. Wide open to Broadway, there is additional access mid-block on 2nd Avenue N and 5th Street N, as well as from the Solar Building retail lobby, all ensuring public visibility.
The Solar Building is shaped to harvest maximum solar energy throughout the day in all seasons, minimizing the effect of morning shadows cast by the Radisson hotel. The parametric design emerges from seasonal sun angle and time-of-day shadow patterns from adjacent structures.The building skin consists of frameless PV solar panels, a fully integrated skin/panel construction. With half of its electric consumption generated by this solar skin - without cost, noise or emissions - Fargo’s Solar Plaza represents truly sustainable design, not just an icon.