06/18/2026
A recent donation to the Kraus-Anderson archive is like many of the items we get – it’s a framed award that once hung on someone’s wall, but, as an award for “excellence in concrete design and construction” for work done on the T3 building, this donation caught my attention. To appreciate the irony, we have to back up a bit. In 2016 Kraus-Anderson was the general contractor for a building that was so innovative it was truly (at the time) unique. T3 stands for timber, transit and technology, and the basic idea is to build large commercial buildings mostly from wood. To be tasked with managing the construction of this prototype was an honor for KA, all the more since the T3 concept appears to be successful. As of 2026, Hines, the Houston-based real estate giant behind T3, lists twenty such projects “complete, in design, and under-construction.” Although mostly timber, there is some masonry in the Minneapolis T3, and, unbothered by the existential threat of mass timber, the Minnesota Concrete and Masonry Contractors Association saw fit to honor its spare, thoughtful, use in this project.
