“We’d like to thank Summit Credit Union for their creative vision and for being passionate co-creators over the years,” states Peter Tan, Design Architect. “We really enjoyed collaborating with Summit Credit Union and the Village of Mount Horeb to create a design that captured Summit’s forward-looking dynamic brand while being responsive to the aesthetic context of the local community.”
Summit Credit Union’s newest branch is another example of the rethinking Summit has embraced when shedding the stuffy image of financial institutions and replacing it with open, transparent architecture. Summit’s goal was for a contemporary design with dynamic trapezoidal shapes and single sloped roof forms with sloping eaves, while the Village of Mount Horeb had design covenants that required traditional gable roof forms. The resulting design captures both these goals with a design covenant-compliant gable roof, but with a creative twist: The gable roof is trapezoidal in plan, creating a dynamic sloping eave. Discover more about this project here.
Commercial Design Award judges praised the interplay of dynamic forms. “While the word whimsical isn’t often used in architecture, the Summit Credit Union in Mount Horeb is playfully appealing,” states one judge. “The mix of colors and dynamic spaces on the interior and large-scale photos combined with the multifaceted roof help anchor the building in the community. The large windows and structural system act as a welcoming beacon to this community asset.”
Check out the rest of this year’s winning projects that took the adaptive reuse of Wisconsin buildings to a whole new level.
