Christopher Strom Helped Write the ADU Rules. Then He Built the Proof.

In the summer of 2022, a small yellow house went up behind a primary residence in St. Paul: 715 square feet, two levels, steps from the garden and the chicken coop. Its client wanted to age in place without giving up community or independence. Its architect had spent the previous years helping write the very ordinances that made a house like this legal to build. In 2025, the Sunflower took an ALA Gold Award.

The architect is Christopher Strom, founding principal of Christopher Strom Architects in Minneapolis, and his path to a 715-square-foot Gold Award ran through some very large buildings first.

Strom studied art at St. Olaf College before earning his Master of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Back in Minnesota, he joined Ellerbe Becket as a project designer, working on convention centers, health care facilities, and high-rise office towers, both domestic and international. When his alma mater built the Tostrud Athletic Center, Strom was its lead designer.

Then the work got smaller, and more personal. From 2003 to 2014 he designed and managed construction for new homes, additions, and remodels across the Twin Cities. In 2014, after earning statewide emerging-talent recognition for his residential work, he founded Christopher Strom Architects. The firm celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024, the same year Strom received Minnesota's highest honor for residential architecture. Along the way his houses have earned nine Star Tribune Homes of the Month selections and several Mpls-St.Paul Magazine RAVE awards.

What sets Strom apart is not the shelf of honors. It is that he works on housing from both ends: the rules and the results. He was an active participant in crafting the accessory dwelling unit ordinances in both Minneapolis and Edina, the policies that decide whether backyard homes like the Sunflower can exist at all. Then his firm went out and demonstrated, at award level, what those policies make possible.

The Sunflower is the proof. Nicknamed for its cheery yellow exterior, the ADU puts main-floor living steps from the garden, with a bedroom, office, bathroom, and laundry upstairs wrapped in bright color and texture. It is small by any measure and generous by the ones that matter: independence for its owner, density without disruption for the neighborhood, and a working model for one of the most talked-about housing types in the country. The jury gave it Gold in the 2025 Design Awards, and it now sits in the ALA Design Awards Archive alongside 16 years of winning work.

Strom also teaches, leading an upper-level studio course in architectural design at St. Olaf, where the whole thing started. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two sons, and stays busy with their high school tennis programs.

His firm's work, including new homes, additions, and a deep portfolio of accessory dwelling units, is at christopherstrom.com. The Sunflower's full project entry, with plans and photography, is in the archive below.

Photography by Alyssa Lee Photography, courtesy of Christopher Strom Architects.