River St. Joe Brewery

River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers

RIVER ST. JOE BREWERY

Moss Design

ARCHITECTS
Moss Design

MANUFACTURERS
American Standard, Kichler, Tubelite, Halo, Lithonia, Thermacore

INTERIOR DESIGN
Moss Design

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Matt Nardella, Aia; Chris Koster

MECHANICAL ENGINEER
Millies Engineering Group

GENERAL CONTRACTOR
Holladay Construction Group

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Rockey Structures

CLIENT
Buchanan Craft

AREA
372 m²

YEAR
2019

LOCATION
Buchanan, United States

CATEGORY
Restaurant, Brewery

MODERN POLE BARN BREWERY IN SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN

Our clients sought to create an organic farm-to-table microbrewery where customers could enjoy a unique agricultural experience.

River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers
River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers

So they came to us to design a sustainable brewery with a restaurant and tasting room. They wanted a modern building that would support organic farm activity while engaging with the rural site.

The brewery is conceptualized as a modern pole barn with a deep overhang to provide shade for the outdoor patio. A combination of corten vertical siding and charred wood cladding wraps the exterior volume. 

Local stones form the gabion walls and flow through the exterior spaces. And native trees, shrubs, and pollinator-loving plants dot the landscape.

River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers
River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers

On the interior, corten steel continues through to the bar sides. In contrast, the bar tops and millwork for the tables, made from salvaged wood found on the farm.

River St. Joe Brewery at Flatwater Farms differentiates from most breweries. Rather than outsourcing, they grow their own organic hops, used for beer production and various crop.

For the restaurant, we centered the voluminous taproom on the site providing stunning farm views and creating a link to the patio and hop farm.

River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers
River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers

Beer lovers can immerse themselves in the beautiful ecosystem and be a part of the harmonious nature that fosters the organic beer process.

DESIGNING A MODERN POLE BARN

Pole barns are the tract homes of the industrial rural landscape.

River St. Joe Brewery
© Kendall McCaugherty, Hall+Merrick Photographers
River St. Joe Brewery
Brewery schematic

These pre-manufactured kits are ordered and shipped to a designated site. Upon arrival, they are plopped down on a foundation without site orientation taken into consideration.

Their greatest appeal is that they are relatively inexpensive, hence their popularity. As we have found with tract homes, the problem is that they end up costing more to operate over time because they do not respond to the site for which they were dropped upon.

River St. Joe Brewery
Polebarn schematic
River St. Joe Brewery
Floor Plan

We knew a fully customized building was not in the budget and that the architectural concept had to be suitable for the land.

With a little creativity and ingenuity, we made slight modifications to the pole barn model to better respond to the use and the site. Employing a few simple design moves, we created a structure, while still modular, that settles into the landscape and is oriented with the sun in mind.

River St. Joe Brewery
Exterior Elevations
River St. Joe Brewery
Building Section

The roof slopes completely toward the south so that the full roof plane can be utilized for a solar array. The slope also provides shade for the building’s precise parts that benefit from having the most glass.