A New Chapter for Loveland Elementary

In a time when many school renovations remove older structures, the Westside Board of Education made the significant decision to preserve the original building, reflecting Loveland’s deep historical roots and unique character.

 “As a parent of four Loveland students, this project is deeply personal. We’re not just building a new facility, we’re carrying forward a neighborhood institution that anchors our community’s identity. Seeing that done in such a thoughtful way means a great deal to our family,” said Design Advisory Committee (DAC) member and Loveland parent, Scott Dobbe.

Designed by BVH Architecture, the new 50,000 square foot historic renewal has been carefully crafted to respect the architectural language of the 1932 building without mimicking it. The design integrates materials, shapes, and forms drawn from both the original school and the surrounding homes of Loveland, ensuring that the new spaces feel both timeless and forward-looking. 

“The design feels rooted. It doesn’t try to erase what came before; it builds upon it,” said Dobbe. “I’m excited for the kids to feel both pride and possibility. The new learning environments will be brighter, more flexible, and better suited for collaboration and creativity. At the same time, they’ll still feel grounded in Loveland’s character. I love the idea that students will grow up in a building that tells them their community values both tradition and innovation.”

Throughout the planning process, Westside Community Schools and BVH worked closely with community members, Loveland staff, and parents. While opinions were strong and diverse, the process ultimately forged a path toward shared understanding. “I was genuinely impressed by how much listening happened. The team from BVH led a DAC process that was truly iterative and responsive to community input. BVH brought forward ideas, absorbed feedback, and returned with refinements that reflected what they heard. The most significant example was the question of the 1932 schoolhouse. Rather than framing it as a simple ‘save or replace’ decision, the team helped us explore how old and new could coexist in a way that honored history while meeting today’s educational needs. That level of nuance served the project well,” Dobbe stated.

The completed design reflects a vision of Loveland as a modern “village square”—a welcoming hub not just for students, but for the entire community. As the last elementary school project funded by the district’s 2023 bond initiative, Loveland’s transformation marks a meaningful conclusion to a larger effort to reimagine learning environments across Westside. 

Stephanie Hornung, Loveland Principal shared her support for this project stating, “Loveland has always been known as the Land of Love, and this new building allows us to carry that legacy forward while creating a space designed for the future. Every day, I see the incredible work our staff does to support students academically, socially, and emotionally. This building is intentionally designed to amplify that work. It honors our strong traditions while providing modern, flexible learning environments that support collaboration, innovation, safety, and high expectations for every learner. This project is more than a new facility; it is a powerful investment in our students, our educators, and the meaningful work that will continue to thrive at Loveland for generations to come.”

BVH Principal Cleve Reeves looks forward to the community experiencing the new Loveland Elementary School, stating, “Projects like Loveland are what drive us at BVH. They create empowering spaces where students, teachers, and the broader community can thrive, while strengthening both the local Loveland neighborhood and the greater Omaha community. Just as meaningful is the opportunity to renew and extend the life of the treasured 1932 original structure. I’m proud of our design team for embracing the challenge, uniting the community throughout the process, and creating architecture that will be treasured for generations.

This project ensures that Loveland will continue to serve students for the next 100 years with the same dedication to excellence and care that’s defined its first century.

Congratulations to New Principal, Evan Gunn!

Evan has consistently demonstrated exceptional skill, insight, and leadership in his role as Team Lead and Project Manager. His steady guidance and strategic thinking have strengthened our design work and propelled our multifamily projects across the region. His commitment to design excellence continues to elevate our work and set a higher standard for our teams. Through his focus on quality, collaboration, and trust, he has expanded both our impact and our reputation in meaningful ways.

“What distinguishes Evan most is his care for the people he works alongside. He leads with humility and a spirit of service, investing in the growth of his teams while holding projects to a high standard of excellence,” shared BVH Principal Dennis Coudriet. “His leadership reflects BVH’s belief that great design is made possible by strong relationships, clear process, and a shared commitment to purpose.” 

Evan will continue serving as Team Lead and Project Manager while stepping into the broader responsibilities of Principal. In this role, he will focus on elevating project success across the firm—strengthening team development, advancing project management standards, and ensuring consistent delivery aligned with our vision. Please join us in congratulating Evan on this well-earned milestone.

Learn more about Evan at BVH.com or reach him via email at egunn@bvh.com. 

BVH Architecture Receives Four AIA Nebraska Excellence in Design Awards

We are honored to receive the following awards:

Museum of Nebraska Art
Honor Award // Architecture

CSC Math Science Center of Innovative Learning
Honor Award // Architecture

Tom Osborne Legacy Complex
Honor Award // Interior Architecture

Museum of Nebraska Art
Honor Award // Architectural Detail

Congratulations to our fellow award recipients—your work continues to elevate our communities and shape the Nebraska landscape. We’re proud to be part of such a vibrant and visionary design community!

Don’t Miss the Building for the Trees: Bahrhausen and Reflecting on BVH’s History of Design

It hasn’t been an especially calm sixty-some odd years in architecture at that, as architects have had to navigate stylistic changes (modernism to postmodernism to whatever we’re doing now) and technical advancements (drafting to CAD to BIM). As taste, staff, and technology changed, there must have been someone guiding the ship through choppy waters. Based on my research, Deon Bahr was that North Star, providing design guidance and fostering an optimistic studio culture. Bahr was the founding principal of BVH, a prolific artist in Nebraska, and broadly an eminent figure in the arts and architecture communities in the Great Plains for decades. Bahr and Bob Hanna founded BVH in 1968, and since then, BVH has received somewhere around 300 design awards (which I guess means BVH’s average is five a year?). I didn’t get the opportunity to meet Deon, who passed away earlier this year, but some coworkers pointed me to Bahr’s home, a unique wood-lined box set inside a grove of trees in South Lincoln. Few things provide more clarity into the design ethos of an architect than the houses they design for themselves, and Bahr’s home, Barhhausen, is as much a part of his catalog of artwork as his artwork feels inspired by his architectural work. His home was art, and his art was art. 

Bahr’s name for his family home, Bahrhausen, is clearly a cheeky nod to the bauhaus influence in the home’s design, which is evident in Bahrhausen’s deceptively simple form, its meticulous detailing in service of clean lines and edges, and how Bahr’s home makes complex material relationships look simple. On the other hand, Bahrhausen’s exterior cedar cladding and roofing speak to different ideas that permeate Bahr’s and thus BVH’s work, meditation on architecture’s relationship to its context or landscape. Bahr was, famously, both an architect and an artist, and perhaps equally committed to Bauhaus’s tenets for both of his passions. Interviewed for the Lincoln Journal Star in 2014, Bahr once said of his art, “As with all art, modifications and surprises inform the final outcome. I prefer backgrounds of canvas and wood panels and am currently into hard-edge strips.” The hard-edge, angular, unadorned cedar facade of Bahrhausen is reminiscent of Bahr’s paintings, which similarly use compositional techniques like hard-edge lines, proportion, and layering to either flatten readings of three-dimensional objects or create the illusion of depth in two-dimensional composition. 

Deon Bahr’s Bahrhausen opus sits, encapsulated by thickets of mature trees, on a two-acre plot of land in Southeast Lincoln. Bahr designed and built Bahrhousen in 1972, a few years after he helped found BVH, when the adjacent plots were fields of tall prairie grass. Over fifty years later, the small outcropping of trees that surrounds the Bahr family home is now flanked by Firethorn golf course and St. Mark’s Methodist Church, as development in Lincoln has crept further south. However, you likely won’t notice the church bells once you’re inside the property, walking or driving along the thin concrete drive that leads to the main house, sights and sounds obscured by the trees. Like Bahr’s art, the design of Bahrhausen opens up as you examine it.

As you continue down the drive, trees gradually peel back to reveal glimpses of cedar wrapped boxes a hundred or so feet away (Eastern Red Cedar are among the most common trees in Nebraska). Sunlight filtering through the tree canopy provides diffused light, revealing a small cedar-clad shed to the right of the path; an appetizer of the architecture to come. The forest fully recedes once you approach the central driveway and patio, which is laid with burgundy bricks in a running bond. Flanking the driveway are two two-story buildings wrapped in cedar shingles and cedar siding; the Bahrhousen main house and its workshop. 

Coming up on Bahrhausen for the first time feels like a sleight of hand. The surrounding trees allow the cedar boxes to fold into their context, until the site’s flora peels back at the brick-lined driveway and the hard-edged wood wrapped shapes come fully into view. The reveal feels playful and satisfying as the hard edge cedar forms host an eclectic mix of exterior elements:a variety of circular and rectilinear windows, garage doors, angled walls and portions of the exterior cedar walls that jog out or bend in, all hosted in an otherwise monolithic wood-wrapped form. Bahrhausen’s big reveal requires a pause to study all its disparate elements, which Bahr once described to the Lincoln Journal star as a “modern two-story exploded box”.

The side door of the workshop building and the front door of Bahrhausen’s main house are connected via a small bridge, wrapped in the same wood the house and garage are clad in. The bridge juts out towards the main house, connecting to ground floor at a forty-five degree angle, skirting over the adjacent landscape which rolls gently down the exterior walls of the main house. The front door to the main house is carved into the building’s form, pushed in at the same angle of the adjoining bridge from the workshop. Once inside, the house is split into two wedge shaped wings to the North and South, connected by a hallway that hosts bathrooms and a connection to the house’s stair, which juts out towards the exterior patio. The angled walls on the North and South wings create views and connections from the first and second levels to two porches, a large porch accessed by sliding doors in the dining room and living room and a small exterior landing, accessed by a small set of stairs off of the large porch, that leads out to back of the property and more thickets of mature trees. 

“Bahrhausen is a playful experiment that looks to its surrounding landscape to find elements to set up subtle visual games between the house and its context. The hard boundaries of the cedar boxes begin to blur with the trunks of surrounding trees, playing with space in a visual game akin to an Escher painting, flattening space between the building and its context.”

Once you’re adjacent to the house, exterior elements like windows and doors play new games on the exterior; their eclecticism once again challenges the otherwise rigid shape of the mono-material boxes. Bahr’s home seems to be saying something about how to thoughtfully compose a facade, while also not being too rigid about composition. Sometimes there are rhythms that reveal themselves in the windows and doors on the facade, and in other moments architectural elements appear where they work best or to throw off the pre-established rules, like the circular porthole window (the only of its kind on the project) which is tucked away on the Southeast corner of the building. It seems like in these moments, Bahr is taking whimsy very seriously; creating rules around the composition of his home and breaking those rules at moments in ways that reward exploration. That same kind of exploration becomes part of the curated progression through the house: park your car in the workshop, walk outside between the two main buildings and cross the bridge, enter the main house, circulate out to the porch, and then walk out to the Eastern edge of the site. You go inside to go outside, rinse and repeat. Reading from Bahrhausen, Bahr seemed to have believed that architecture needed to be thoughtfully curated but to also play games that make a building more than just a “machine for living”. Bahrhausen is a house, but it’s also a series of hard edge wooden boxes, a composition of eclectic exterior elements that pop in and out, shapes that blend in or disappear into their context, and an apparatus for bringing you from inside to outside, etc.

When I moved back home earlier this year, I had been living and working outside of Nebraska, mostly on the East Coast, for nearly a decade. Since then, I’ve been looking into BVH’s catalog of work to better understand what designing in Nebraska (and other nearby states) could or should look like. Bahr believed that great design didn’t just come from cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or London, and I think that bears out in projects like Bahrhausen. My hope is that generations after Bahr can build on his ethos, well-crafted projects, rigorously playful, connected to their landscapes.

BVH Architecture Receives AIA Colorado Excellence in Design Award for the Museum of Nebraska Art

This revitalized institution merges past and present—preserving its 1911 Federalist Revival structure while adding a 23,000-sf contemporary expansion. The result is a museum that fully supports MONA’s mission: to elevate Nebraska art through inclusive exhibition, education, and community engagement.

It’s an honor to help shape a space where art, land, and identity converge.

We are grateful to our partners and the MONA team for their trust and vision:

Furniture Design: Arrowstreet, Boston, MA
Landscape Architect: Coen + Partners, Minneapolis, MN
MEP/FP/AV/IT/Security Engineers: Morrissey Engineers, Omaha, NE
Structural Engineers: StudioNYL, Boulder, CO
Lighting Design: Buro Happold, New York, NY
Sustainability Consultant: Atelier Ten, New York, NY
Energy Modeling: Morrissey Engineers, Omaha, NE
Art Storage Consultant: Samuel Anderson Architects, New York, NY
Civil Engineer: Miller & Associates, Kearney, NE
Food Service Consultant: Foodlines, Lincoln, NE
Retail Consultant: Lakeside Collaborative, New York, NY
Cost Estimating: Breck Perkins, Stonington, CT
Owner’s Representative: Maass Works
Construction Manager: Whiting-Turner

Header Image: Nic Lahoux
Event Photo Courtesy of AIA Colorado & Amp Media

More Than a Museum: Creating Community Space at MONA

Yet until recently, the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) lacked spaces where that connection could truly take shape. There were no dedicated studios for hands-on workshops, no flexible venues for community events, and no places to linger and gather informally. For all its strengths as the steward of Nebraska’s artistic legacy, MONA had not yet become a place that could fully serve as the heart of its community. The recent transformation changed that—not by simply adding rooms, but by reimagining the museum as a civic and cultural commons.

The Challenge: A Museum Without a Civic Heart
For years, MONA, like many museums, asked its galleries to do too much. Exhibitions, lectures, and public events often overlapped, creating logistical constraints and limiting opportunities for inclusive engagement. The absence of dedicated community space meant:

It was a museum that inspired—but couldn’t always hold—its audience.

The Response: Designing for Connection
The reimagined MONA introduces a series of community-centered spaces designed with purpose and care:

These additions are not peripheral—they are integrated into the museum’s core experience. They extend MONA’s mission by making space for participation, dialogue, and everyday presence.

A Museum That Belongs to Everyone
By creating spaces for being—not just for viewing—MONA has redefined its role in downtown Kearney. It is no longer simply a destination for exhibitions, but a civic anchor. A place where someone might attend an opening one evening, return for a workshop the next week, or stop by for an afternoon coffee under the honeylocust trees.

Most importantly, it is a place that signals to every visitor: you are welcome here, whether or not you came for the art.

That kind of openness—spatial, emotional, cultural—is what transforms a museum into a civic heart.

A New Model for Regional Museums
In rural and regional communities, where gathering places are often limited, museums like MONA can play a vital role—not only as keepers of culture, but as conveners of community. By designing with that responsibility in mind, MONA sets a powerful precedent.

It’s not just a museum that holds art. It’s a museum that holds people.

 

Photo: Nic Lehoux

A Place to Be Seen: Solving the Gallery Space Shortage

MONA, housed in a 1911 Federalist Revival building in Kearney, Nebraska, has long been the steward of the state’s official art collection. Its holdings represent generations of Nebraska artists—across media, eras, and movements. Yet for decades, the museum simply didn’t have enough gallery space to display that legacy. Many large-scale works remained hidden from public view, and exhibitions were often limited by spatial and logistical constraints. For an institution devoted to visibility and storytelling, this was a fundamental challenge.

The recent expansion and reimagining of MONA directly responds to this need—not with just more square footage, but with purpose-built, flexible galleries designed to elevate and evolve the visitor experience.

New second-floor galleries with soaring 18-foot ceilings now allow for the exhibition of large and monumental works that were previously impossible to display. Curatorial flexibility is embedded in every space—enabling thematic groupings, rotating shows, and deeper engagement with both the permanent collection and contemporary voices.

Photos: Nic Lehoux

The design introduces natural light with care, using glazed thresholds to frame views to Nebraska’s expansive horizon while preserving the integrity of the artwork inside. These visual connections to land and light ground the visitor in the region’s identity, even as they move through a contemporary and adaptable interior.

This expansion is more than an architectural gesture. It’s an affirmation: that Nebraska’s art deserves to be seen, studied, and celebrated. That the public deserves access to the full richness of its cultural legacy. And that museums in rural places can lead in making art accessible—not just in content, but in experience.

In revealing what was once hidden, MONA opens the door to new narratives, new audiences, and new possibilities. The expansion is not an endpoint—it’s a platform for the future, ready to grow with the community it serves.

By creating more space for stories, MONA reaffirms its role as a living institution—rooted in place, shaped by people, and open to all.

Behind the Scenes Matters: Expanding Art Prep and Storage

The expansion added significant new conservation, prep, and vault areas—including a visible, public-facing art vault that invites visitors to see the often-invisible work of preservation. By investing in these critical “back-of-house” spaces, MONA ensures the longevity of its collection for generations to come.

Behind the Scenes, Vital Work: Expanding Art Preparation and Storage at MONA

When visitors walk through a museum, they often see the polished final result—beautifully curated galleries, inspiring exhibitions, seamless storytelling. What they rarely see is the intricate, often invisible work that makes it all possible.

At the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA), that behind-the-scenes work had long been challenged by a lack of space. Limited art preparation areas, insufficient storage, and aging infrastructure placed strain not only on staff, but on the museum’s ability to properly care for Nebraska’s cultural treasures.

As part of MONA’s reimagining, we knew that investing in these hidden but vital spaces was essential. Because a great museum doesn’t just display art—it preserves, protects, and honors it.

The Challenge: Cramped Conditions and Hidden Constraints

Over the years, MONA’s collection grew in both size and significance. Yet its physical capacity to support that growth lagged behind.

Behind the elegant exhibitions, a quiet tension existed: How do you care for a collection that deserves more than the building could give?

The Response: Building Infrastructure for Stewardship

The reimagined MONA answers that question with clarity and commitment.

A greatly expanded basement level now houses state-of-the-art storage, art preparation, and conservation spaces—designed not only to meet today’s best practices, but to anticipate the museum’s future growth.

In short: behind every gallery now stands an infrastructure of excellence.

Celebrating What’s Often Invisible

At MONA, we also made a quiet but powerful choice: to bring some of this behind-the-scenes work into public view.

Rather than relegating the art vault to an inaccessible corner, the design incorporates strategically placed windows, offering visitors glimpses into the art storage areas. This transparency reminds every guest that preservation is part of the museum’s mission—and that the care of art is an act of love, skill, and deep responsibility.

In a world where so much attention goes to what is seen, MONA celebrates what is often unseen: the tireless efforts that make Nebraska’s artistic heritage endure.

A Legacy of Care

Art is memory. It is imagination made tangible. And it is fragile.

By expanding and modernizing its storage and preparation facilities, MONA affirms its role not just as an exhibitor of art, but as a guardian of it.

From Barriers to Invitation: Making MONA Approachable

When BVH Architecture began the journey of reimagining the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA), one of the most visible—and symbolic—challenges was the building’s relationship to the community it serves.

The original structure, a 1911 Federalist Revival post office, carried a dignity befitting its historical status. But over time, its stately, opaque façade and prominent staircase created unintended barriers. The building appeared reserved, imposing—even inaccessible. For many visitors, especially those with limited mobility, the steep steps and heavy massing made the museum feel distant, a place to admire from afar rather than a space to step into naturally.

A New Threshold

The opportunity was clear: the museum needed a new kind of welcome—one that honored the historic structure, yet transformed the experience of arrival into one of openness, ease, and belonging.

Our design response began by introducing a universally accessible plinth—a broad, elevated platform that gently rises from the landscape, erasing the need for grand stairs while preserving the ceremonial approach. The new addition, recessed respectfully from the original façade, steps back rather than forward. In doing so, it allows the historic building to maintain its presence while signaling a new era: one that embraces transparency, accessibility, and community connection.

Large glazed openings at ground level invite visitors in visually before they even cross the threshold. Instead of encountering a wall, passersby now glimpse light-filled spaces, art, and activity within. The museum no longer hides its life behind stone; it reveals it, drawing people closer.

Beyond Compliance—Toward Human Dignity

While accessibility was a practical necessity, we viewed it as much more than meeting code requirements. True accessibility is about dignity. It’s about ensuring that everyone—regardless of ability, age, or familiarity with the arts—feels that they belong.

By redesigning MONA’s approach to be both physically and psychologically welcoming, we reinforced a central belief: that art and culture are not for the few, but for the many. The new entry sequence doesn’t diminish the museum’s stature; it elevates its role as a living part of the community.

Photo: Nic Lehoux

The Power of Choice: How Flexible Library Master Plans Can Serve a Growing Community

Designing for Now and Later

Today’s library systems face a growing challenge: how to stay relevant amid evolving technologies, shifting demographics, and unpredictable funding. In this landscape, the most resilient master plans don’t point to a single solution. They offer a range of futures.

That’s what we call the power of choice.

Rather than prescribing one fixed path forward, a flexible master plan presents a framework of options—each grounded in community input, cost modeling, and design feasibility. It allows decision-makers to start small or go big. To act now and dream forward.

A Case in Point: The Columbus Community Building

One of the clearest examples of this approach is the Columbus Community Building in Columbus, Nebraska—a shared civic facility that houses the city’s public library, city hall, and children’s museum under one roof.

This wasn’t simply a new library. It was a reimagining of public service at the civic core—a vibrant, modular, and adaptable building that reflects 21st-century library values. The design process offered the City of Columbus multiple paths: renovation, addition, or entirely new construction. The city ultimately selected a transformational option—but only after carefully weighing each scenario alongside its stakeholders.

The result is a facility that includes a business incubator, a family living room, teen spaces, maker labs, and an “Idea Box” for community display—all designed to flex with changing needs and growing programs.

And crucially: it all began with a choice-based plan.

A Master Plan Is a Decision-Making Toolkit

Across our work in Holdrege, Pender, Lincoln, and Central City, Nebraska, we’ve learned that no single solution can—or should—answer every community’s needs.

Instead, we create choice matrices that present phased, scalable investments such as:

Option A: Strategic renovations to extend the life of existing buildings.
Option B: Targeted expansions to meet modern needs.
Option C: Full-scale transformations—new builds or co-located civic hubs.

This method empowers cities to plan across time—adapting to budget realities without compromising vision. Each option is grounded in real data, community feedback, and long-term sustainability.

Why Flexibility Matters

A flexible master plan helps communities:

In Columbus, the city’s desire for a welcoming civic identity led to the inclusion of a literal “front porch”—a flexible outdoor space that now connects the library, museum, and coffee shop. This simple, powerful gesture grew directly from community visioning, and now serves as a physical symbol of belonging​.

Community-Driven, Data-Backed Design

We’ve seen, time and again, that the most successful plans are not just for the community—they are with the community. Through stakeholder interviews, pop-up engagements, and collaborative design charrettes, we co-create plans that reflect a community’s identity and aspirations.

Our approach mirrors findings from national research, including Gensler’s “New Model for the Public Library” which underscores the importance of social equity, personalization, and flexible design​.

Flexible Doesn’t Mean Indecisive—It Means Empowered

Too often, public projects are presented as binary choices: build or don’t. A flexible master plan disrupts that either/or mindset. It opens space for iteration, for dreaming, for recalibration.

It doesn’t delay decision-making—it enhances it. It invites boldness and responsibility to coexist.

Because when a community is given choices—clear, data-driven, and aligned with its values—it gains more than a building. It gains agency. And that’s the foundation for a truly future-ready library.

Let’s Design for Community, Together

Our vision as designers is to transform lives by creating places that contribute to the vitality of communities. We believe in making the world better through design.

Let’s design for choice. Let’s design for change. Let’s design for the community.

If you’re ready to explore how flexible planning can empower your community’s next chapter, we’d be honored to help.

 

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