At Architects in Michigan we are always open to collaboration within our own studio as well as working with other professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction realm. And we are, open to exploring collaboration’s new collaborations all the time to make sure that the project succeeds as best as it can for our clients. And if that means that we partner with a another architecture firm than we are definitely open to exploring those options. And we have proven that we have the capacity to do so. In the past, working with one of our longtime clients, the Greater Flint Mental Health Facilities Board, a nonprofit that manages commercial and residential properties for the Genesee health system, was looking to consolidate a number of its, office spaces into one central location, which was looking like a four to $8 million building project. We took the initiative to partner with Harley Ellis Devereaux, a larger Detroit area from, in order to bring the best experience from our staff and Harley Ellis Devereaux staff to produce a feasibility study to explore the best possible and most, economical solution for the GHS board.
And that included a, multi-page document that was cocreated by the staff at Harley. I was Deveraux and our own, Architects in Michigan and this process, took four to five months and, was something that they are longtime client. The Greater Flint Mental Health Facilities Board was extremely, happy with the outcome of this document as well as our collaborate collaborative process. Working alongside, from, our, our, our small office working together with the Harley Ellis Devereaux team to produce this final product. And the success of this project was due to the fact that we had the local knowledge and the over 40 years of experience with the client, but also collaborated in order to bring in some top experts in the field of healthcare services in order to produce an even better project product in the end of the process.
Recently we also have been working with a doctor group for a project here in Flint, for an outpatient surgery center. And these operating rooms are a very complex project type and we understand that and that our client has very particular space needs for the equipment and for the workflow of performing outpatient surgery. And we partnered with a fellow architect, Co colleague at Ghafari architects, a well-known, Dearborn based architecture firm. And we divided the workload of this project between the main architectural design being performed by our office and the mechanical and electrical design, performed by Ghafari in order to divide and a staff this project with the best expertise in both areas of the project as well as a final coordination performed by our office in order to produce the documentation for a bidding and construction services. And both of these projects, identified are examples of our willingness to collaborate, to build the best team for our clients. but also an example of our longterm relationship and fellowship amongst our fellow architects and our members of the American Institute of Architects. Architects in Michigan is very engaged with the American Institute of Architects, the AIA at the local Flint level, the Michigan region as well as at the national level. so that gives us a long time relationship and fellowship with architects within our local, regional and national levels. when we are looking to build these relationships and partnerships, we first seek out our colleague architects of the AIA because we are all a well experienced architects that have a common interest in mind and we can easily collaborate together because of our volunteer work for AIA, to develop the, the policies and procedures of the AIA alongside our fellow architects.
And so Architects in Michigan take this same experience space and translate it into our clients so that we can take all of our shared knowledge and produce a quality team for each project that, that serves our client’s needs, completely and thoroughly so that we are always keeping our client’s interests at the forefront, ahead of our own, desire to design a project on our own. the bigger picture goal is to make sure that the clients’ projects are served and served well.
recently we have been, well over the past five years. Our office has designed a couple of residential projects that are, near net zero energy consumption. sometimes that is also called a passive house design for residential projects. but this net zero energy goal is something that our office excels at and is producing work in the state of Michigan that achieves a net zero energy consumption goals from our client’s wishes. Architects in Michigan, through the AIA, we have also met, experts in this field and we’ve collaborated with them. So we are currently working with a consultant from Minneapolis, Minnesota and emerging professional, passive house consultant if they’re from is called precipitate architecture. And we know that we can develop the details necessary for net zero energy buildings, but we also know that we can share this work with our colleagues, especially as far away as Minnesota and when working on a project in Michigan. So we’re always seeking these partnerships because one from alone can offer a lot of things, but we know that we cannot offer everything under the sun and Excel at it. And so we choose to focus on our core strengths. And then we partner with architects and colleagues to bring in their core strengths to make the team a greater whole than our individual parts
Architects in Michigan design process includes beginning each design with the concept and not just, developing the concept but taking the client’s vision for the space requirements, their budget requirements, and the site selection. And we fold this information into what we use to develop our concept for the project. It’s not just an architectural solution, but it incorporates the financial constraints, the site constraints as well as the space requirements from the client in order to produce, the beginning stages of this project. and design process. Architects in Michigan utilize tools, such as, been technology, which is building information modeling. And that is a three dimensional and two dimensional design software that we use to create the early studies but also be able to produce information, such as quantities and material quantities, component schedules, square footage totals and a buildable areas very quickly so that we can quickly understand how the budget begins to get impacted by the initial design stages.