Location: Kalamazoo, MI

Project Area: 55,000 SF

Year Completed: 2017

2017 AIA Southwest Michigan Merit Award

The Foundry is located in Kalamazoo’s River’s Edge neighborhood at 600 E. Michigan Avenue. With its proximity to downtown and location on a major thoroughfare, the redevelopment of the site expanded the edge of downtown Kalamazoo. The modern office environment embraces the sites’ history and highlights its industrial roots as a former gray-iron foundry and steel fabrication facility through the incorporation of existing exposed columns, roof beams, and trusses.

The floor plan was designed to encourage tenant interaction and camaraderie. The main north-south hallway zig-zags beneath the line of the original crane beams bisecting the building from front to back creating ample office space and shared common areas—kitchen, restrooms, meeting spaces, and an outdoor terrace along the Kalamazoo River. The common areas also feature several conversation alcoves with recessed seating zones with reclaimed wood walls, floating ceilings, and carpeted areas.

Additionally, the Foundry office complex is connected to the 600 Kitchen & Bar that occupies the original brick structure of the old gray-iron foundry.