We recently connected with Meg Holmes and have shared our conversation below.

Meg, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Biggest risk: moving and starting an architecture firm in a city where I had never worked as a professional and doing so without a backup plan.

Having worked for firms in Shanghai, Chicago, Portland OR, and San Francisco, for 10+ years, I decided to quit my job, move back to my hometown of St. Louis, and open an architecture studio. Since graduating with my Masters, my end goal has always been running my own practice but I had no concrete ideas on how or when that would happen. While working professionally at a handful of firms, I gained critical experience while also realizing the stability and benefits of employment and the associated limitations on being able to shape your professional trajectory. In my early/mid-30’s I felt I had reached a ceiling at my current firm (which I loved) which pushed my decision to make a change.

Despite how much I loved the wide variety of Cities where I had worked over the course of my career, returning to my hometown of St. Louis to put down roots and start a firm was always my end goal. I feel a growing recognition that St. Louis is underrated for entrepreneurs and creatives. The City offers affordability which lowers the initial investments required to get a new business off the ground, is home to prestigious and renown universities which cultivate progressive ideas and draw international attention, and has more than its share of strong cultural institutions. For architects, St. Louis offers a historic urban core which has not seen the waves of redevelopment that its contemporary sister cities have. The inventory of incredible but vacant buildings is a truly astounding opportunity for changing the trajectory of the city which has been losing population since the 1950s.

The goal of starting a new practice was to cultivate the type of impactful, community building, and lasting contemporary design that I’m passionate about but wasn’t seeing in St. Louis specifically. I want to drive the project and client types and drive the conversation towards a new version of urban renewal. The risk I acutely felt was that this vision for MIN+ Architecture’s signature services and projects would not find a receptive audience. I didn’t have a backup plan for what my architectural career in the City of St. Louis would look like if MIN+ Architecture didn’t get legs and grow.

With 4 years behind us, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and the trajectory we’ve created for our work and clientele. It’s an ongoing experiment, but I’m increasingly optimistic about the future of MIN+ in both Missouri and California. We are being “discovered” more and more by an amazing mix of ambitious developers, non-profits, and entrepreneurs whose ideas and plans may be seen as outside of the box by other more traditional architecture firms. We are happy to help these kinds of clients nurture new ideas of urban renewal and develop a roadmap for transforming these ideas into physical built space.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

MIN+ Architecture is a woman-led firm offering a unique perspective on design that thoughtfully marries contemporary construction methods, materials and aesthetics with a wide variety of project and client types. We work in the St. Louis, Los Angeles and San Francisco markets, and benefit from allowing these drastically different environments to inform our approach. We excel at high-level analysis to provide thoughtful Programming and Master Planning and offer comprehensive services that scale down to include interior furnishings, finishes, art curation and signage. A successful component of our approach is regular collaboration with other design fields and fabricators, to bring our custom and innovative ideas to life.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

In our California market, we’re invested in innovative programming to maximize value and longevity in a space-strained market. Whether it’s large scale master planning, proposing surprising adjacencies, like overlaps with agriculture, living and education or it’s small scale detailing for a family’s home when more space is not an option. We enjoy being at the forefront of contemporary and sustainable design, made possible by our California work.

In our Missouri market, we view every project through a high-level lens focused on supporting the creation of a more equitable, sustainable and thriving St. Louis city. Changing the trajectory of the City will require an incredible mix of ideas and implementation and architects can and should be a lead driver of that movement. The results are visible, long lasting and incredibly rewarding, making our work worthwhile.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

putting a quantitative and competitive value to creative services is a critical part of running an architecture firm but it’s an ongoing challenge to effectively communicate what can be a non-linear process.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.minplusarchitecture.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/min.plus.arch/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/MIN-Architecture/100070815910062/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/minplusarch/

Image Credits
Amy Hulse Aaron Bunse MIN+ Architecture