Northville’s inFORM studio hires intern, wins AIA award

The buildings that come out of inFORM studio look like structures that would be designed by an architecture firm. They They emphasize what’s today (and tomorrow) with strong, innovative features that tend to make jaws drop open and the “Wow” to fall out.”We try to approach these things with a real fresh eye,” says Cory Lavigne, design director for inFORM studio. “We don’t try to regurgitate things over and over again.”There is an exception to that statement, sort of. The downtown Northville-based firm took many of the dying ash trees on the land where Ann Arbor’s Traverwood Library sits and used them for its structural columns, flooring, and walls. The design helped the firm win a design award from the Michigan chapter of the American Institute of Architects.That award comes on top of growth at the transitioning firm. It started as the Van Tine Guthrie Studio in 2000 before it merged with a South Carolina firm and became inFORM studio in 2007.It now has 11 employees in offices in Northville, Myrtle Beach, and New York City. Seven of those are in Metro Detroit. The firm also recently hired a University of Michigan graduate student that had recently interned with the studio.”It’s been pretty good, all things considered,” Lavigne says.Source: Cory Lavigne, design director for inFORM studioWriter: Jon Zemke