Lyon Township, Michigan, USA
The two-story-tall, 80,000-square-foot Zeiss Michigan Quality Excellence Center in Michigan designed by SmithGroup, represents the noted optics, measuring, and scanning producer in architectural form.
ZEISS’ Michigan Quality Excellence Center has recently been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The floor plan features two lab spaces, a high bay measurement lab, and a machine showroom lab, all attached by a glazed double-height “social link” that provides welcoming communal spaces for employees and visitors.
This glazed link visually connects parking and entry to the large exterior terrace and wetlands on the far side of the building.
Sustainable efforts are both visible and invisible to the employee and visitor. Corrugated metal rain screen façades hide lab areas.
Less sensitive areas feature a custom ceramic frit and low-E glass that maximizes views in a highly efficient building envelope.
Extensive photovoltaic arrays across the expansive unseen flat roof of the building produce enough energy to reduce the building’s fossil fuel consumption by 70%.
Juxtaposing its simple forms sheathed in bright white metal or glazing, the building’s tautly wrapped volumes exhibit the same taut mechanical precision as Zeiss’ products.
Project: ZEISS Michigan Quality Excellence Center
Architects: SmithGroup
General Contractor: The Christman Company
Client: ZEISS Group
Photographers: James Ewing and Jeremy Bittermann
