West Bend Mutual
West Bend Mutual Insurance’s headquarters is located on 160 acres of restored natural prairies and woodlands in West Bend, Wisconsin. GRAEF provided structural engineering, civil engineering, and landscape architecture for an addition which doubled the company’s amount of space. West Bend Mutual added 214,000 square feet, three stories and parking structure to its existing building. A major challenge of the addition was to have the site to look as if all of the improvements have been in place for many years.
Several outdoor spaces were created that will allow for entertaining, contemplation and recreation. The landscape features an outdoor plaza which overlooks a naturalized pond and waterfall, a central outdoor courtyard, and rolling hills planted with native grasses and forbs.
The campus addition included a 440-space parking ramp and outside parking. The parking structure is cast-in-place, post tensioned and blends in with the site’s topography.