The demand for vocational education, now typically called Career Technical Education, or CTE, has grown significantly in Michigan in the last decade. In the 2024–25 school year, a record 55,431 students in the state completed CTE programs, the second consecutive year that the number hit a new high, according to the Michigan Department of Education. State funding for this specific educational model has increased apace.

Simultaneously, Michigan has been finding its economic footing by investing in electric vehicles, battery plants, robotics, and advanced manufacturing, and employers are increasingly in need of technicians, machinists, electricians, welders—not to mention nurses, vet techs, and chefs. Technical-focused education programs support a pipeline of skilled job applicants, while allowing students to bypass the cost of a four-year degree and providing pathways to satisfying, high-paying careers.

In this context, the new Career Connect Campus (CCC) in Kalamazoo is a state-of-the-art model of the CTE typology and an eagerly awaited addition to the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency (KRESA), which funnels a diverse range of students from nine public school districts, 19 private schools, and 23 regional school districts in Kalamazoo County. The school opened in the fall of 2025 and was made possible by a $100 million anonymous construction donation and gifted site. County voters approved a separate millage to support operations and programming.

Matthew Brehmer, a principal at DLR Group in Phoenix, Arizona, led the design of the KRESA school, and has developed an expertise in CTE design. “They are spreading like wildfire,” he says, and not just in Michigan. “A lot of it has to do with the speed in which tech is moving. There’s a high demand for skilled workers. We turned away from that for a while, and now there’s a large skilled worker gap that needs to be filled. The hands-on aspect engages students through applied, real-world learning.”

The 160,400-square-foot steel and mass timber Career Connect building is ideally located in the center of the school district and in a highly visible area off Interstate 94, which links the area to Chicago and Detroit, two industry hubs. The two-story structure is a vaguely boomerang-shaped form that runs east to west. To the south, it embraces bioswales, an urban farm, a dog run, and an entry pond that provides stormwater retention.

Large swaths of glazing on the angled volumes that contain each program area create an educational beacon that can be seen from the highway and engage the surrounding community. A bridge over the entry pond takes visitors into the soaring double-height atrium at the building’s inflection point, with generous seating areas, a bleacher-like stair up to the second floor, and an introduction to the beauty and strength of its hybrid structure. Exposed steel X‑braced columns provide lateral stability while keeping the building visually open, and glulam beams add warmth and support the cross-laminated timber roof panels, sourced from Ontario.

As Brehmer explains, much of the building’s design emerged from four extensive stakeholder workshops, which included students, teachers, maintenance staff, and local industry leaders. Together with the design team, they settled on the idea of a “discovery trail” inspired by Michigan’s many nature trails—a central pathway through the school that acts as a circulation spine and commons, with clear views into each program’s learning spaces. The students also wanted a highly sustainable building and requested the use of mass timber, says Brehmer, and the school district met their requests.

The east wing includes the administration area, with shared faculty spaces on the first floor and offices overlooking the commons, a two-story technology space that highlights innovation and emerging technologies, and the auto program with an auto gallery. The west wing is anchored by construction trades, the culinary program, and classrooms. The west wing also forks slightly to the southwest, with the veterinary program, health sciences, and a conference room and training center that allows for events to happen outside of school hours.

DLR’s overall approach, coupled with local architect of record Wightman, to CCC was to create a living laboratory, where students were exposed, if not directly, then visually, to the equipment and daily tasks of real jobs. (DLR Group even exposed the building’s structural and mechanical systems, turning them into teaching tools.) This influenced the design directly, says Brehmer. For example, his team placed the industrial design classroom above the manufacturing floor. “The thought was that they could be up there in their design lab, working, and literally downstairs, other students could be manufacturing the prototype,” he says. “We tried to make all these visual connections. Even health pathways might intersect with advanced manufacturing.”

Each programmatic area includes state-of-the-art technology equipment, much of it better or more cutting-edge than what can be found in the real world. “They are not just industry-standard, but industry-leading. Industry pushed us and now we’re pushing industry. We’re filling this huge gap in education,” he says.