THE LITTLE PLANT ON THE PRAIRIE

BusinessWeek Online Architectural Record Awards: THE LITTLE PLANT ON THE PRAIRIE

Sitting in an 11-acre field of native prairie grasses, QMR Plastics Div. combined production, engineering, and management in a single facility. Julie Snow, an architect who has made a speciality of bringing together white- and blue-collar teams under one roof, designed a large open space. Different functions are separated only by a glass wall. Daylight pours into the workspace, and only glass separates the factory floor from the outdoors. Flexible spaces will allow the company to increase production: Instead of running 12 injection-molding presses on two daily shifts, as in older factories, it can accommodate 20 presses on three shifts. The local River Falls (Wis.) community is especially sensitive to the environment. By surrounding the building with indigenous grasses, QMR made itself welcome. Grass is also a low-maintenance landscaping medium, which saves money.