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 Architecture often gets all the press when it comes to sustainable building design, but interior design can be just as important in achieving a more sustainable working or living environment. MiBiz asked Lee Davis about the role of interior design and sustainability. Davis, an interior design instructor at Kendall College of Art and Design and principal designer at Lake Affect Design Studio, has more than two decades of experience in the industry.
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 GRAND RAPIDS — You can smell the “new” the moment you walk in the door of the Mirador Family Wealth Advisors offices, adjacent to the Fifth Third Bank building in downtown Grand Rapids. You can almost, but not quite, smell the money. That will come later.
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 GRAND RAPID — Thanks to several private donations, John Ball Zoo has undertaken a series of projects planned to last through 2014.
The total cost for the additions is set at $12.5 million with a lead $5 million contribution from the Bill and Bea Idema Foundation.
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MICHIGAN — A new bill could change how often Michigan revises its construction codes, and proponents say that could translate into savings for businesses and more consistency in the regulations.
The state construction codes reform, House Bill 4561, is currently waiting its day in the Senate. Having passed the house in a 68-to-39 Republican majority vote on Dec. 1, the bill now awaits review by the Senate Committee on Regulatory Reform.
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 GRAND RAPIDS — For a city with a reputation for having a church on every corner, it stands to reason that one of its newest architectural firms would have a religious focus.
Architects Jim VanderMolen and Steve Fridsma said their vocations and passions led them to form a new firm, Elevate Studio, which caters to worship communities around the country. The duo has worked together for 16 years, 12 of which they led Progressive AE’s Worship Environments Studio. A desire to be closer to clients and follow their guts as they make business decisions led them to form Elevate in spring 2010.
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 GRAND RAPIDS — As businesses continue focusing on cutting costs, bean counters have corporate travel in the crosshairs.
Thanks to advances in audio and visual technology, putting an executive on the next cross-country flight to meet with a client is no longer the only solution. That has companies investing in their corporate boardrooms and video conferencing systems, but the best system in the world still cannot compensate for poor acoustics.
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 GRAND RAPIDS — As work finishes on The Rapid’s newly renovated operations center, Peter Varga is keeping an eye toward the future.
The $32 million addition and renovation project has enough capacity to support two decades of future growth for the regional transit authority, said Varga, CEO of Interurban Transit Partnership, also known as The Rapid. The project benefited from $10.6 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus funds that allowed the authority to start the project in 2009, two years earlier than planned.
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 GRAND RAPIDS — Independent designer Tod Babick has a confession: When it comes to balancing creativity with cash flow, he admits, “I am much better at drawing pictures.”
Babick owns Plow, a Grand Rapids-based industrial design business. Like many other “indie” designers, he’s faced the internal tug-of-war between over-servicing clients and satisfying his own bottom line. Along the way, he’s also learned some helpful business lessons about the topic that is central to Plow’s success: sustainability.
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