Wayland -
I enjoy seeing the growth of MCC, and Muskegon in general. I'm acquainted with the architecture firm that does a lot of MCC's work, and they do quality stuff, even if on a tight budget.
Here's a few photo highlights from a recent tour of the nearly-completed "United Brotherhood of Carpenters Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters (MRCC)" Union Hall and Apprentice Training Center, in Wayland. (whew, that's a mouthful). Wayland is a growing town, located halfway between Kalamazoo and Grand rapids. You may know it for the nearby Gun Lake Casino, which is also undergoing an expansion.
There were some unique challenges brought about by the client’s needs. Probably most striking was that they had to maintain a very distinct separation between the two halves of the building to remain compliant with strict union rules about overlapping functions. Therefore, the central spine / gallery between the two halves is the only space that is truly shared, and that apparently took some convincing. The entire project was required to be completed using 100% union labor (no surprise there), although they had a hard time finding local talent and had to bring in some trades from the other side of the state (hence the logic for a new training facility on the SW side). All of the building materials were required to be manufactured in the US or Canada, and the thermal envelope was requested to be designed 30% greater than required by current code. But they were not going for LEED as far as I could gather.
Not surprisingly, the structure features some nice wood framing and detailing. Although they related that the original idea was for an entire timber-framed gallery connecting the two sides, and they had to pare it back some. The overall concept in the main hall is a progression of wood finishes. You start with the rough, un-finished glulams, then the portals to different functions of the building are more finely finished. Once you are deeper into the spaces, the wood paneling and finish work is even more refined. Notice in some of the photos how all of the wood grain at the portals is perfectly aligned when it turns a corner.
Code-wise, the whole building was able to be classified as a ‘B’ use with education as an accessory use. So no building separations in a ~70,000 SF facility filled with construction materials, welding stations, a large banquette hall, classrooms, and offices. They really pushed the limits of how large the training floor (and especially the training mezzanine) could be, using exceptions and allowances in the code. So there are some pretty interesting fire protection features, as a result.
Owner occupancy is expected next month, and they plan to begin training / classes early January. Byce was the Architect. Schweitzer the CM. More info is available at the architect's website,
here.
Portal thatleads to some of the classroom and training space.
Pretty cool precast concrete sink fixtures.
Portal to the Union Hall.
Inside the Union Hall, which is a banquette facility that could be utilized by outside groups.
Classroom space adjacent to the large training space.
Training space, including a large mezzanine.
Close-up of one of the utility columns - a repeating detail throughout the space - each column base in the training area provides access to every conceivable utility (water, gas, air, power at varying voltage, telecom, emergency / extinguisher access).
A bay of welding training stations. There were 24 of these in total.
One of the conference rooms.
