Kjersti Duval
Principal, Duval Companies
Research Affiliate, Minnesota Design Center
Resource Professional, Mayors Institute on City Design
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Public interest design & development practitioner.
Real estate intelligence + design thinking + impact = innovation space for the built environment.
My Story
Kjersti is CEO of Duval Companies and founder of Studio Civic | Duval, a practice line within Duval supporting the unique design, development management, and engagement needs of public interest urban projects and public-private partnerships.
Kjersti served as the City of Minneapolis Planning Director during the period that US Bank Stadium and Downtown Commons Park were designed and developed. Prior to the City, Kjersti worked for AECOM, a multinational design and engineering company, as an urban designer and as the Real Estate Strategy market sector leader for the company’s US Eastern Region.
With executive experience implementing transformative urban projects in both private sector and public sector contexts, she has developed an informed perspective on how consequential places come to be, which is often through the simple principle of listening, acknowledging, and supporting the path to implementation. Kjersti is an affiliate of the Minnesota Design Center (University of Minnesota College of Design) and a contributing resource professional for the Mayor’s Institute on City Design.
Highlights
Business
Studio Civic | Duval
When I was 12 or 13, I wrote a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my lifetime on a scrap of notepaper. One of them was to "become the CEO of a large corporation." Although the "large corporation" part of this fell away as a priority, the CEO part never did. Coming from a small town background without money or influence, working summers in the canning factory to save money even into college, I always wanted to someday step away from being an employee and captain my own ship. I'm proud to be CEO and 50% owner of Duval Companies, and founder of its public interest practice line, Studio Civic | Duval. We're uniquely situated to advise and implement projects where design matters and there's a public interest at stake.
Academia
Harvard, Minnesota Design Center, Fulbright, CTS
I earned two Masters Degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Urban Planning and in Landscape Architecture. Research has always been at the heart of my professional practice. Over the years this has included numerous activities. Right after grad school I did a year-long Fulbright Fellowship in Belgium (Katholieke Universitat Leuven) just outside of Brussels researching public private partnership and its policy origins. While living in China, I helped to organize the first Shanghai International Urban Forum at Fudan University, working with Wenhui Shan. During this time I guest edited an edition of 306090 (Princeton University Press). As Planning Director at the City of Minneapolis, I led a pilot of municipal uses of Virtual Reality in partnership with the Virtual Reality Design Lab at UMN (this work was presented at SXSW as well as at the American Planning Association conference). While serving on the Executive Committee for the Center for Transportation Studies for 6 years, I served on the Strategic Management Subcommittee, whose mission was to identify research priorities on the horizon and shepherd funding toward research proposals focused there. My current affiliation with the Minnesota Design Center returns me to my urban design roots, and is supporting my active research on the future of towns. I also enjoy staying connected to the next generation, and currently teach urban design at the University of MN College of Design.
Public Service
City of Minneapolis, Mayors Institute, Orono Park Commission, committees
Having worked both for, and within, government, I have unique insight into government relations and jurisdictional issues of implementing urban projects. During my tenure as Planning Director of the City of Minneapolis, we built U.S. Bank Stadium and Commons Park, refurbished Target Center, redesigned and constructed Nicollet Mall, launched the redevelopment of the Upper Harbor Terminal, and adopted "Pathways to Places," an award-winning downtown public realm framework plan that I initiated as a joint planning effort of the City and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. It provided a coherent plan for streets and parks in the CBD and dozen or so downtown neighborhoods, and made the numerous partnerships necessary to achieve vibrant streets legible, empowering stakeholders as partners in co-creation. During this time, I served on numerous committees, including the Super Bowl LII Wayfinding Committee & Technology Subcommittee. and as a Mayoral appointee to the East of the River Park Master Plan Advisory Committee, and part of the planning team for Destination Transformation 2030. Although I have left government as my full time employer, I still participate. I served for 2 years as an appointed Park Commissioner in the City of Orono. For many years I have advised mayors on their legacy projects as a Resource Professional for the Mayors Institute on City Design (a nonprofit partner of the US Conference of Mayors). I am also a Board Member of the Fulbright Association. My company's advisory work often puts me at the center of public-private partnerships, and in the position to deliver public interest outcomes. I regularly work with elected officials and their administrative staff at all levels (local, state, federal, tribal).
Design
EDAW | AECOM, Ben Wood Studio Shanghai, DLC
Urban design was my first love and dominated the first several years of my professional career, which spanned the US and Asia. I worked on numerous large projects in China, including World Financial Center in Shanghai with Cesar Pelli's office while working with DLC, serving as the lead landscape designer of a major urban plaza. During that time I also designed the topographically dynamic public realm at Chongqing Tiandi, working with Ben Wood Studio Shanghai and DLC. I worked with the City of Daytona Beach on an implementable plan for their iconic Daytona Beach Convention and Waterfront District. I worked with MeadWestVaco to balance habitat and stream restoration with new town development on 80,000 acres of former timberland outside of Charleston, SC (this area is now called East Edisto, and the first community development to be implemented within the conservation framework is called Summer's Corner). And I designed Chiva Central Park in Valencia Spain while working for EDAW | AECOM (this project was never built due to the financial crisis in 2008/9). My career in design slowly grew toward projects with both design intent as well as economic development and real estate strategy at their heart. I worked with Chris Corr to develop a new Real Estate Strategy practice line at AECOM, and became the first Real Estate Strategy Market Sector Leader for AECOM's US Eastern Region, blending design thinking with implementation readiness as our primary value proposition.
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What is public interest design? And what should we be considering as we shape a process that fully embraces and realizes a project’s public interest potential? Understanding these key principles and characteristics can help.
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The design process was guided by principles defined by the Native Partnership Council. At the heart of it was the understanding that water is life, and that the River wants to nurture all of her children: the animals, the fish, the people, the plants, the sky and the water. Concepts of natural and cultural restoration, as well as learning, healing, and gathering, became important principles.
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The superblock in China has become the dominant unit of urban planning, allowing for rapid urban growth while also meeting the needs of state and property developer alike. Kjersti Monson explains the conditions that have given rise to the superblock, while challenging it by proposing an alternative ‘stringblock’ approach, rooted more in collective culture and addressing the demands of the market-driven economy.
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