Architect Joanna-Maria Helinurm: 5 Questions

Estonia-born architect and designer Joanna-Maria Helinurm, 39, had two career paths laid in front of her at a young age: become a professional athlete or go into commercial real estate. 

Everyone in her family was one or the other. Her dad held a national record in Estonia for hurdles, and grandma on dad’s side was a tennis champion, but her stepfather was a developer and her grandmother on her mom’s side was a designer. 

And at first Helinurm pursued athletics, even coming to the U.S. as an exchange student for high school to join a track team. Ultimately, she chose a career path that offered mentorship from some of the most iconic names in design and gave her the opportunity to work with artists such as Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. 

Now Helinurm is taking her passions in a new direction: from concert venues to luxury homes. She has redesigned and redeveloped an 1890 landmarked townhouse in Brooklyn Heights and is currently working on a ground-up residential building in Miami. 

Helinurm sat down with Commercial Observer to discuss her career and the new direction in which she is taking it, including the inspiration behind her founding of Laviku, a New York-based architecture studio.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Commercial Observer: Where did your passion for design and architecture come from?

Joanna-Maria Helinurm: Influence from my family. Growing up, everybody in my family was either a professional athlete or very much into design. Initially I wanted to go into fashion, but I was then influenced by my stepdad, who is in real estate, to go into architecture. 

My family is active in real estate and steered me toward architecture, but my early experiences in fashion and athletics taught me discipline and the belief that you can win in anything. So, architecture became the space where I channel that philosophy into design that’s both human and ambitious. I don’t think passion needs to be confined to one industry. 

Outside of your family, who has been your mentor in the architecture space?

Eric Owen Moss was my mentor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. I worked at his studio in 2012. Moss recognized and encouraged my individual design explorations, emphasizing that every architectural move must be grounded in reasoning, and that a personal logic ultimately forms the most compelling architectural argument.

 You have worked on some large-scale venue designs, including the concert stages for Super Bowl week. How did you tackle that specific project?

I served as lead architectural and interior designer for nine consecutive Super Bowl week concert venues between 2012 and 2020. These were the high-profile concerts leading up to the game itself — productions for sponsors such as DirecTV, AT&T, PepsiCo and EA Sports. 

My role encompassed both the architectural design and the art direction of venue lighting and production environments, often involving either ground-up temporary builds or the conversion of existing structures into multi-level arenas capable of hosting 8,000 to 10,000 guests. We approached them much like major music festivals. We built a base stage and immersive environment, then collaborated with headline artists — Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Rihanna — and their teams to adapt or layer onto that framework for their individual shows.

For example, in Minneapolis for Super Bowl LII in 2018 I collaborated with a local developer to transform the historic Minneapolis Armory into a permanent live-music venue. We debuted it that week under the Nomadic Live brand, hosting headliners such as Jennifer Lopez, Imagine Dragons and Pink.

Is there a venue project that you worked on that sticks out in your mind?

The first one I ever did. Seeing that in action with how I envisioned people would use it versus how they actually ended up using it actually led me to study a lot about human nature and behavior and how spaces influence the way we live and use our environments. 

This was a big one in San Francisco. We took over an old warehouse and converted that into a three-story, dual-stage venue with a hidden speakeasy that we called 404. We had Bruno Mars, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a country band whose name I am forgetting all performing. 

We created this elaborate design that would lead people to the stage through a choreographed journey, and when the doors opened about 500 people just sprinted through the design we created. They were more interested in just being there by the stage as the first people in. They may have experienced it as they left the building, but I was shocked that nobody would take the time to experience what we created. 

But that gives you a sense of understanding the crowd psychology and why they were there. But once it started to fill up and there was no chance to be right at the stage, people started to actually pay attention and notice the things that we had put more detail and attention into. 

How did you transition from entertainment venue design to residential design? And why did you create your own company? 

Over COVID-19 the concert venue designs and builds slowed down, and that was really the turning point to getting into residential. But I found there was a really good segue to going from the large-scale crowd psychology to understanding and working with individuals in more intimate spaces, and getting into the details and materiality and intentionality within the design.

I’ve always known I wanted to lead with my own vision rather than be confined by someone else’s. The perfect opportunity presented itself when the firm I was with was acquired. I chose to see it not as an ending, but as an opening. I transitioned from employee to independent consultant, turning that very company into my first client and proving my ability to build a practice on my own terms. 

From there, I founded my atelier, where we now work on projects ranging from luxury residences and landmark transformations to hospitality destinations, and commercial properties united by a conviction that architecture has the power to shape experience, performance and human behavior. I am currently most excited about a bespoke, boutique condominium development I am designing on the waterfront of Miami-Dade’s Bay Harbor Islands, which is now progressing through the permitting process.

Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com.