Wisconsin Builder | Top 20 Projects of 2001

No Place Like Home

MERO's new headquarters showcases its products

By Sean Ryan
Daily Reporter Staff

Manufacturing

The windows and skylights that MERO manufactures and sells also enclose the company's office area. The offices are set apart by partitions that create lots of open interior space.

Photo courtesy of Plunkett Raysich Architects

Project Name: MERO Structures North American Corporate Headquarters

Location: Menomonee Falls

Owner: MERO Structures Inc.

Architect: Plunkett Raysich Architects, Milwaukee

Engineer: Amcon, Waukesha

General Contractor/Construction Manager: Amcon, Waukesha

Project Cost: $3.3 million

Start Date: December 2000

Completion Date: July 2001

Description: MERO's new headquarters includes a 36,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and a 14,000-square-foot office area. The offices feature a glass-enclosed reception area, board room, open office space set apart by moveable office partitions, a plan room and a break area.

MERO Structures' plan to replace its lackluster offices with a new manufacturing headquarters resulted in a glowing, glass showcase for the company's structural products.

"We were actually in two buildings before, and one was a very nondescript square building," said Jack Matlock, manager of major projects for MERO. "There's no comparison. The whole office area is open from one end to another, and there's a lot of glass. I like the brightness of it. It brings the outside in."

The building incorporates many of MERO's structural products, including point-supported glass and spaceframe glass curtain walls and acts as a showcase to visiting clients, said Mark Herr, partner in charge for Plunkett Raysich Architects in Milwaukee. MERO primarily manufactures glass walls, skylights and walkways, so the front office area resembles an aquarium, he said.

"The building is a sales tool as well as a headquarters," Herr said. "There's just so much glass. When you drive past it at night it just glows."

Part of the building incorporates MERO's spaceframes, which are the walls that helped establish the company in the post-World War II reconstruction in Germany. Matlock said the new headquarters' design reflects the company's roots with a simple and "high-tech European flare."

"MERO started right after the war when they were involved in temporary structures using spaceframes that could be moved easily," he said. "We tried to bring in a little European influence. It's simple with a lot of black and white."

Two in one

The headquarters houses both MERO's offices and manufacturing facilities, so the architect had to find a way to incorporate the two without making it look like a common block building. Herr said he tried to hide the manufacturing facility behind the office area and make it blend into the background.

"Most plants are big boxes in essence, so the real critical thing there was that we wanted precast curtain walls," he said. "We wanted the precast to be painted a gray color so it would blend into the sky and not overpower the office structure."

Matlock said the headquarters strikes a balance between extravagance and banality so that it stands apart from the other plants in the Menomonee Falls office park without overwhelming them. The design also controlled the cost of the project by using precast walls on the manufacturing facility.

"The (office park's) ownership really wanted something different and very unique," he said. "We didn't want anything that would overpower people or look like we put too much money into it. We just came out with a very attractive building for a very reasonable cost."