On the Kalamazoo campus of Westen Michigan University, a public-private partnership bringing together the school, the city, and the state with a manufacturer, Newell Rubbermaid, has yielded a design incubator—with an interior by Perkins + Will design principal Eva Maddox. Eva is a pioneer in the development of brand strategy and communications through design. She was handed a 40,000-square-foot building, constructed warehouse-style, and asked to turn it into a branded environment suitable for 130 international designers (Craig Kellogg).

“Given the 24-foot ceiling, we had to bring the scale down,” Maddox explains. A latticework canopy in clear-finished ash therefore hovers above the central circulation path, starting in reception and extending most of the building’s 300-foot length. On one side, the canopy descends to front a row of design labs.

“The entire wall is a design feature,” she says.

Source: Interior Design