I am a creative architectural designer who finds solutions for the problems that are brought to my attention with approaches that do not occur to others. My surprise solutions work and have been built in the given environments clients set forth by their needs and wants.
I am a 1978 Graduate of the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts with a Bachelor of Arts degree. I focused on art, music and German. I came out doing architectural design. I am not an architect.
After working eight years at Garden Court as a designer of fine restaurants the Garden and French Cafe in Minneapolis, 5 other restaurants, of homes designed and built, as well as office and manufacturing processes designed and implemented, the business I had helped form as a principle designer was unable to stay in business.
Of the 50+ people with whom I had worked as a colleague, many remembered what I could do for their new employers, or for their own new businesses in construction, property management, and real estate.
In January 1983 I began doing business as Rand Claussen, architectural designer. My specialty was looking at physical work or home environments and seeing how to made them elegant and efficient in the use and allocation of space. My documents met all code requirement to allow clients to get permits to build what we designed.
I also applied my spacial design skills in other areas such as innovative graphic design as art director and designer of the magazine, the Minnesota Horticulturist, for 3 years. I let that project go to spend a year (1989) in China as a teacher. Events there forced my family to live for 10 weeks in Hong Kong and on a beach on the South China Sea. After China I continued architectural work. In 1992 Biomedical Graphics at the University of Minnesota hired me for a year as an experienced Mac based graphic artist / designer / technician to implement a Mac Based work environment.
I work creatively with colleagues. I look around to know the world we live in.