New SMC Athletics Facility Shepherds New Era of Student Life at Southwestern Michigan College (SMC)

DOWAGIAC, MICHIGAN – 08.19.2022 – Southwestern Michigan College (SMC) officially kicked off its renewed athletics program with a dedication ceremony last Wednesday at its brand new athletics facility, 1st Source Bank Fieldhouse. The renovation and addition, designed by Abonmarche, will breathe new life into the fabric of the SMC campus while supporting the many new athletic sports programs at the college.

The new athletics facility brings an entirely new experience to students, fans, and alumni with enhanced amenities, including state-of-the-art gymnasium upgrades, athlete-focused support spaces, alumni and donor experience areas, and an observation lounge overlooking the sports facility affectionately called “the Nest”.

The architectural team at Abonmarche worked closely with SMC to define the school’s primary goals for the new space. In addition to serving as a home-base for all athletic programs, 1st Source Bank Fieldhouse will host students and community members for a wide range of events such as commencement ceremonies, concerts, and the like.

“This entire project has been a catalyst for recruitment, bringing back athletics to SMC while also enhancing the student life experience for all students working toward completing their education,” said Arvin Delacruz, Architect, AIA, NCARB, at Abonmarche. “We focused on creating a well-rounded experience for the student athletes – but we also wanted this space to be something all Roadrunners and the community at large can be proud of.

“SMC has a legacy of bringing high value amenities to the collegiate options young people have across Michigan – and this new addition will continue that tradition.”

New gymnasium features include a state-of-the-art technology suite of digital screens and scoreboards, a total renovation of the court floor, and retractable bleachers. The new facility will support the launch of all-new basketball, volleyball, and wrestling programs at SMC.

Support spaces include:

  • New locker rooms for the home team and updated lockers for visiting team
  • Training area with therapy and cold bathing tub
  • Team laundry facility and equipment storage
  • Suite of Athletic Director, coaches and administrative offices
  • Second level officials room
  • Second level lounge suite

Additional upgrades include new flooring, lighting and paint, new guest restrooms, and elevator access.

Even within a tight timeline driven by the school’s need to start hosting activities in advance of the Fall 2022 athletic season, the building was kept operational as design and construction were being completed.

“This project featured a high level of complexity within a pressed timeline, and the design team and owner were focused on being mindful of the need for this building to maintain operations while construction was underway,” Delacruz noted. “When athletes began arriving on campus ahead of the school year, they were able jump right into training.”

Dedication ceremony attendees – which included athletes from SMC’s basketball, cross country, dance, volleyball and wrestling teams – enjoyed refreshments, met with athletic program staff, and enjoyed tours of the new facility. With the support of community members and organizations, and the SMC Board of Trustees, Southwestern Michigan College is ready to launch this new chapter.

The Project Team

Structural Engineering, Architecture, Interior Design: Abonmarche

General Contractor: Pearson Construction – Benton Harbor, MI

MEP Consultants: Comprehensive Engineering – Grand Rapids, MI

Furniture: Michigan Office Environments – Kalamazoo, MI

Additional Resources

To learn more about the new SMC athletic programs and curriculum being offered: https://www.swmich.edu/news/a-full-court-press-as-the-roadrunners-return.html

On The Boards | Spectrum Health Cardiothoracic Surgery & Structural Heart

Spectrum Health Cardiothoracic Surgery & Structural Heart – exam room rendering

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, a new project by our architectural team is taking form. Slated to go live mid-March 2022, Spectrum Health Cardiothoracic Surgery & Structural Heart wing will serve heart patients of all kinds across a 12,000 square foot medical office building. Abonmarche provided architectural and interior design services, and partnered with Comprehensive Engineering for the project’s building systems engineering.  

The clinic comprises the main suite for the Spectrum Health Cardiovascular Medicine Team, with offices, clinical exam and procedure rooms, X-ray facilities, and supporting spaces. In addition to ample workstation space, the plan also features a staff lounge and a training room for educational and demonstration needs. A variety of additional spaces and registration area complete the plan for this specialized discipline.
 
“We’re excited to see this new project for Spectrum Health come to fruition,” noted Arvin Delacruz, Senior Architect & Senior Project Manager at Abonmarche. “Our team has collaborated extensively with the world-class surgeons at Spectrum to create an environment to provide state-of-the-art medical care.

Project Highlights

  • Enhanced patient experience
  • Collaborative open plan workstations
  • Multi-practice collaboration
  • Wayfinding
  • Patient-sensitive materials
  • Exam room pods

On The Boards | RETA Pregnancy Clinic & Family Resource Center

RETA Pregnancy Clinic and Family Resource Center
RETA Pregnancy Clinic and Family Resource Center

With three months of construction to go, the new home for the RETA pregnancy clinic and family resource center, designed by our architectural team, will soon open its doors in downtown Elkhart, Indiana!
 
When RETA outgrew their facilities in a repurposed Victorian house, Abonmarche, in partnership with DJ Construction, designed a new two-story, 12,500 square foot headquarters to incorporate a restored historic post office building dating back to 1868. While the team had to work through many technical challenges inherent in meeting new construction requirements within a 100-year-old landmark structure, the project site also presented key design opportunities.
 
Creating an atrium-like space between the old and new construction allowed opportunities for vertical circulation, a central waiting area, and a store for clients. The program includes administrative, clinical, counseling, and social spaces, as well as various technical spaces, including a large bay for a mobile support vehicle. The design also addresses the streetscape environment in downtown Elkhart, provides parking, and accommodates privacy while establishing an attractive presence in the community.
 
Abonmarche services on this project include: civil engineering, architecture, structural engineering, surveying, interior design, and landscape architecture.
 
Highlights:
Streetscape & site design
Architectural building design
New construction & renovation
Large vehicle bay
Atrium space
Clinical, Counseling & Admin spaces

A Tech Company Tackles the U.S. Camp Industry | UltraCamp Offices In Niles, Michigan

UltraCamp, a Michigan-based tech company providing camp management software, has been helping camp organizations across the country run better so that their camp staffs can spend more time doing the things they love.

UltraCamp’s origin story begins with its founders fusing their passion for active lifestyles with their knowledge of summer camps into a business that runs the digital side of summer camp operations. Today, the company successfully runs the management software for around 800 camps throughout the United States.

“We help camps do more with less work by giving them the power to track attendance, automate billing tasks through payment plans, create new donor relationships, manage the entire staff application process, streamline the registration process, and much more,” notes the UltraCamp website. “All of this helps directors and managers recover the time they need to focus on what is really important: CAMP.”

After finding its new home base in a building in downtown Niles, Michigan, UltraCamp selected Abonmarche to design the architecture and interiors of the space. Previously occupying part of an old historical post office building, UltraCamp sought to up its square footage to accommodate its full staff, as well as break away from its mundane, uninspired previous digs. In addition to serving their needs on the business side, they wanted to inject their own active lifestyle mindset into a built environment.

“Our role as designers in this project, and in any project, is to extrapolate what our client is feeling, how their culture works – and expand and elevate those feelings into a built environment,” says Arvin Delacruz, Architect, AIA, NCARB, Abonmarche. UltraCamp’s culture was already very defined; it was our job to then articulate that in the built form.”

With an open, progressive, active spirit already in place, UltraCamp tasked the Abonmarche design team with creating a space that:

  • Would be a place of activity. “A rock climbing wall was a must.”
  • Could be used by a variety of age groups. “Their kids, ranging anywhere from toddler to teenage age, often come there.”
  • Have a variety of spaces for both collaborative and focus work
  • Include spaces that were multifunctioning

“They also said that, whatever we design – food was very important to them. The fellowship that comes with gathering around a meal is really engrained in their culture. The staff and their families really enjoy spending time together, and so they wanted their space to reflect and support that.”

UltraCamp seldom has clients come into their physical space, and much of their work has been done remotely in the past. A new workspace would enable everyone to come together into one space. While remote work was certainly effective in running the business, the UltraCamp team wanted an environment that people could come together and collaborate more easily in.

A Layered Workplace Strategy

The new UltraCamp space is split evenly between traditional office workspaces and lifestyle activity spaces for their staff, such as a rock climbing wall, foam ball pit, etc. Across 19,401 square feet of office space, 87% of the workspace is collaboration and/or amenity space, with primary individual workspaces making up the remaining 13%.

Although each staff member has an assigned workstation, there are no private, enclosed offices, and team members are not confined to their workstations.

“The mentality is that your office is the entire building. Even though the formal office square footage is small, the team makes use of the entire space. This project in particular featured a lot of layering of spaces, of blending amenity-focused and work-focused spaces.”

“We were constantly thinking about elevating quality of life, about changing postures throughout the work day, and of all of the physical ramifications that come with being inside a building for a good portion of your day. We were also paying attention to the natural amenities that the building gave us – for example, the incredible natural daylighting running through the space. UltraCamp is a wonderful case study of that.”

In addition to a rock-climbing wall and an underground laser tag facility, Abonmarche outfitted the space with a suspended gerbil tube that both children and adults can crawl through for a playful moment of fun.

“There was this suspended tube, originally meant for underground water storage, in its bright orange natural color that prompted us to look at a lot of materials in a new way. Instead of concealing this element, our design team incorporated it into the overall schematic design.  And beyond that, how do you look at an IT firm in a new way? These were types of questions we were concerned with answering through design.”

The second level opens up to an elevated “living room” space. Beyond is an expansive harvest table and a fully equipped kitchen, for both their own use and for having meals catered there for the staff.

Injecting Active Lifestyle Aesthetics

The UltraCamp space evokes a contemporary, playful aesthetic. The visual texture, furnishings and materials all reflect the invigorating lifestyle they have in place. All of those elements trickle up to how they’re able to create a positive impact for the clients they work with.

“This project was a study in materiality for our team. How do you transform really mundane materials, and elevate them so that they become an expression of design? How do you look at materials in a new way?”

UltraCamp wanted something you could live and be comfortable in, but at the same time show this really high tech world they operate in. It was about striking that balance to say, “This is a forward-thinking company, but one that is also mindful of the psychology of space – and of comfort.”

“We selected very bold colors that aren’t necessarily trendy but that speak to an active lifestyle. Set against a backdrop of neutral white are the bright oranges of the gerbil tube and rock climbing wall, bold blues and bright yellows as accent colors. We also wanted to bring in a natural element, to again connect with that active lifestyle culture. The sliding barn doors are made of recycled wood, and provide that warmer, natural tone.”

Staff and visitors feel equally at home settling down on the couch with a cup of coffee to have a high-level business meeting outside of the boardroom.

Stepping Outside the Box

“This project was especially gratifying because we were allowed to think outside the box. We were not confined to it having it be ‘this way or that way’. We let the space speak to us about how it needed to function, and what it should feel like. It still needed to function properly for the client, and so we paid close attention to creating spaces that the UltraCamp team would really use. We were able to meet the client’s directive – and go beyond that to elevate what they thought was possible.”

In addition to bringing all of UltraCamp’s staff together into one space, the new workspace also serves as a community center for downtown Niles, hosting various gatherings as an integral part of the downtown Niles scene since moving in June 2017. The new UltraCamp offices were a featured project in the Michigan Municipal League, the regional community business consultancy based in Ann Arbor, MI.

“This space was intended as a catalyst for continued growth in other business in Niles. The goal was to have people thinking, ‘If this company can do something like this in Niles, then I can too.'”

“And this is a space where Abonmarche is able to really shine as a firm. The acumen of design is not relegated to region – we’re a mid-sized Michigan/Indiana firm with a lot of powerful ideas that can translate to real community transformation.”

For more information on UltraCamp, visit. www.ultracamp.com.

Spotlight | Healthcare Design Practice at Abonmarche

Arvin Delacruz, Architect, AIA, NCARB, Abonmarche

So much has changed in healthcare design over the past ten years, and our team is laser-focused on guiding our clients as they make decisions to invest in the most innovative – and most effective – healthcare design principles in practice today.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges that only a few had predicted, and it’s forcing everyone – in every vocation – to see and interact with their jobs differently. Amidst all of the challenging effects of COVID, there has been growth, and innovation, at many levels.

There’s no group of people who understand this more than those working in healthcare environments. Our healthcare system has been completely overwhelmed by the pandemic, and healthcare companies, administrators, and front-line workers are all being pushed into new, uncomfortable territory. And by now, many of us have experienced a COVID-impacted healthcare environment first-hand, whether going in for care for oneself or by accompanying loved ones. Our physical health is certainly in danger, but the long-term mental, social and psychological health effects of the pandemic will take years to properly understand and measure.

The built world has an tremendous effect on our mental and psychological wellbeing, and the research to prove it now exists. While our healthcare environments have traditionally prioritized physical health over other areas of wellbeing, this has fortunately begun to change. Due to growing bodies of accredited research, followed by higher numbers of evidence-based design projects, healthcare spaces are beginning to focus more on the full picture – on holistic human wellbeing.

Physical health priorities are now accompanied by psychological health priorities, and the designers, architects, and systems engineers are in a perfect position to lead this movement.

Our design team is working with healthcare clients that are hoping to shift to a more holistic approach to caregiving; therefore, the environments they work in will also need to shift. We’re helping each client – public and private, acute and outpatient – navigate decision-making in ways that help them deliver the best care possible and future-proof their investments. We’re doing this in a few key ways:

Promoting biophilic design. Our surroundings are proven to have a direct impact on our nervous systems. Biophilic design elements infuse the positive health benefits of nature, and the natural world, into the built world.

Adopting a hospitality and spa aesthetic. Less clinical-feeling spaces create a specific positive-oriented atmosphere. Soothing colors, textures, and sounds all have the power to lower anxiety levels and create a relaxing, out-of-the-office mood – increasing the likelihood of regular preventative healthcare visits. Our healthcare environments can be both sanitized and welcoming.

Designing for seamless entrance, check-in, and exit sequences. All of these touchpoint experiences contribute to a positive, or negative, experience that each patient walks away with. If healthcare providers can improve each touchpoint, both patients and staff will feel more valued and less stressed.

These areas of focus are transforming the healthcare environments we all interact with. Each presents a new way of thinking about our own wellbeing, as well as our expectations for what is possible in a clinical environment.

To learn more about our healthcare design practice, reach out to Arvin Delacruz at adelacruz@abonmarche.com.

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