Otogawa-Anschel Design+Build

08/07/2026

https://www.qualifiedremodeler.com/2025-master-design-awards-kitchen-more-than-200000-honorable-mention-2/

Kate Roos Design LLC Minneapolis | kateroosdesign.com Minneapolis | kateroosdesign.com Location: Minneapolis | Project Cost: $600,000 Square Footage: 493 Remodeler:…

07/03/2026

Things have gotten pretty bad if Karl Rove is a voice to amplify. He rightly and accurately calls out JD Vance for promoting an Un-American notion of “Heritage Americans”.

The op-ed, comes on the heels of the Supreme court’s ruling on birthright citizenship (a ruling that should’ve been unanimous), making it clear, once again, that the founding documents do not support the bigotry of the president, vice-president, turning point, and the white nationalist MAGA church.
Rove points to our origins and formative decades, of a country that inspired the Emma Lazarus sonnet inscribed at the base of the beacon for the world; give us your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse. The only rule, “abide by the principles of declaration and the constitution written to secure them”.

This is what vitriolic hate mongers like Tom Emmer get wrong. This country never espoused assimilation. We took great effort to not establish an official language, religion, or cultural bias. Diversity is our identity.

Nothing and no one is served by homogeneity, except perhaps the factory floor, where business would prefer automatons over people. That temple of the golden crypto calf, where the worship of gilded excess is practice, and self over country is scripture; that is where our humanity dies and births a perverted notion of being an American.

The country was not perfect in is creation. The Op-ed a little rosy. The 250 years, full of terrible moments and also of inspiring triumphs. If we zoom in on the moment, we might see a country that is losing its way, but if we zoom out a little, we see a trajectory that is undeniably positive.

There will always be preachers of punching down, who want to “throw a sheet over the statue of liberty”, to whiten up and revive the southern cross. They challenge us to remember what America was conceived as, and what millions have fought for. They challenge us to not be complacent in the ongoing work. They challenge us to not give up on this place, despite it’s flaws and failures.

While DC fails us, the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota showed the country what it means to stand up for your neighbor. While DC erected monuments to itself, Chicago built a center of community, hope, and change. America’s proof of life.

This July 4th, consider turning off the news. Step away from your media silo. Connect with your neighbors, find common ground with those who don’t look like you, or speak your language, or pray to your god. Remember what it means to be an American. The idea is the real heritage.

[Karl Rove - WSJ - Heritage Americans; an un-american idea]

06/30/2026

We're hiring! Looking for an amazing designer to join our team!

If you're passionate about high-performance homes, smart design, and thoughtful construction, we’d love to connect.

06/09/2026

Let's talk about drawing sets! Everyone handles them differently. The cover page plays an important role. It's an opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the playbook. Here's a quick look at our approach. .

06/04/2026

As we make progress on the New Modern remodel, we are very excited to announce that it will be featured in this Fall's Artisan Home Tour!

An informational website about The New Modern residential remodeling project at 4925 Girard Ave S, Minneapolis, MN by OA Design+Build+Architecture.

05/26/2026

This time we visited Grand Manam Island in New Brunswick, Canada, and our dear friends at Big Dog construction. Working with Panel and Channel siding requires some planning, but the results are amazing, especially with the new sea grass pattern on Hardie panel!

www.protradecraft.com | SUBSCRIBE!https://www.youtube.com/channel/...

05/18/2026

This is new construction. Intentionally built this way. I watched it go up 3 years ago. (It's across the street from my oldest's high school.) It was full of code violations as it was being built, enough to get it shut down multiple times by the city. .
The design sets the house up for failure of the worst kind. The codes aren't really set up to handle this level of insanity either. Not just the water that's being channeled directly at the window, the entire roof above it, smashing against the side of the dormer! Not just bulk water events, the snow that will pile up against the house, and melt, and freeze, and melt.. .

05/15/2026

The House and the Tree.

OA Design Build Architecture installed the first ever SkyCove on this Minneapolis remodel of a 1913 Spanish Colonial; turning it into a modern marvel that ha...

05/03/2026

Structure is fun, and often hidden, so let's talk about it while we can still see it! .
Steel beam went in, and runs from foundation where we grout the core solid first, add a capillary break, and run over to a PSL (paralam), which bears on a new footing.

This will picks up the floor framing so we can move the original bearing beam, cut out the the floor framing and bring in our new dancing winder staircase that we've been posting about.

Something we don't do that often is pour a dual thickness footing. In this case the engineer asked us to set the large L shaped footing 2" lower so we can attach our mounting plate and bolts, grout it in and tile over it. Essentially hiding the structural connection.

Fun stuff! ..

05/03/2026

It's almost here! With a line up of speakers that is guaranteed to make for the best Building Science Symposium ever. Just another reason to love Canada! .