Getting Together

6

Getting Together

Making compelling public spaces is a complex art. There is no simplistic step-by-step formula that can guarantee positive outcomes. But there are solid foundations that will send us on the path to success. These include: integrating distinctive local cultures into the essence of the project, staying open to innovative and emergent influences, involving those affected by the plan in decision-making, determining public-good objectives with project partners and sharing

progress as the collective efforts evolve. An inclusive, participatory, and responsive framework for engaging with stakeholders, specialists, communities, and government is needed to move a bold vision for the Cultural District forward. The process challenges us to look beyond architecture, landscape, and engineering to include the voices and perspectives of people who understand the dynamics and cultural ethos of the city.

The Storefront + Digital Engagement

In the design team’s experience, some of the best conversations about the future of the built environment happen around a physical model. People often have trouble empathizing with the fixed perspective of architectural drawings, which necessarily limit their scope of interaction with the project. A physical model facilitates interaction with the proposals and creates a sense of agency for the public. The design team loves the directness of models; they are accessible, legible, and often trigger immediate feedback, like it or not.

Sharing evolving models of the CCPI project with the public was always the plan for Akoaki and Agence Ter. The Storefront, which the design team opened on Cass Avenue shortly after winning the competition, was intended to house the in-progress work and spark conversation with the public and stakeholders. But, like so many projects rolling out in a landscape impacted by COVID-19, the team was thrown a major plot twist. Now unable to present a physical model for public interaction, the design collaborative asked: How can people navigate, explore, and give self-informed feedback in a digital space, especially when the project is complex, multi-layered, and includes many stakeholders? In response, the design team developed CCPI.online, a navigable digital platform that models the entire 80-acre plan. Features include links to constituent institutions; information about the proposed greenscape; mobility and parking studies; and space for the public to share feedback. Zoom in close enough and users find the simulated thickness of paper in the lines of the modeled buildings and trees rendered like they are cut from Plexi with sharpied edges. The digital model simulates precisely how the design team makes models for physical presentations.

It’s important to admit that architects rarely show work in progress. However, with 12 stakeholder institutions, the City of Detroit, government, foundations, and the general public, the project requires a way to communicate with constituents as matters develop. Appropriately, CCPI.online serves as a virtual pin-up board that reveals the process and facilitates a collective vision. Sharing research, the team is able to show symbiotic relationships between institutions, the street, and public space.

Top: Axonometric view of the digital model hosted on CCPI.online and built with a candid affinity for aughts Bing Maps. A toolbar allows the map to rotate and zoom into points of interest. Bottom: Clickable information cards allow users to explore themes of interest, and provide feedback. Next Page: The design team’s Storefront at 4161 Cass Avenue in Midtown Detroit.

Above: Digital Presentation by Anya Sirota Next Page: Digital Engagement Session

Model Citizens Akoaki

“In our experience, some of the best conversations about the future of the built environment happen around a physical model,” says Anya Sirota, architectural designer, Associate Dean at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and founding principal of urban design studio Akoaki. In Sirota’s view, people often have trouble empathizing with the fixed perspective of architectural drawings, which necessarily limits their scope of interaction with the project. “A physical model facilitates interaction with the proposals and creates a sense of agency for the public,” says Sirota. “We love the direct instrumentality of models; they are accessible, legible, and often trigger immediate feedback, like it or not.”

Sharing the model with the public was the plan as Akoaki collaborated with Paris-based Agence Ter on the Detroit Cultural Center Planning Initiative (CCPI) —an intensive, 18-month project that sought to ideate a flexible urban greenscape linking twelve major cultural institutions in Detroit’s bustling Midtown. But like so many projects rolling out in a landscape impacted by public health concerns, the team was thrown a major plot twist. Now unable to present a physical model for public interest and interaction, the design collaborative asked themselves: How can you give people license to navigate, explore, and give selfinformed feedback in a digital space?

“Compelling landscapes address multiple datums at once, carving the matter beneath our feet as well as shaping the living and ethereal layers above,” says Olivier Philippe, founding principal of award winning international landscape and urban design firm Agence Ter. “Using a full range of planimetric and sectional strategies to inflect the beauty and functionality of public space, CCPI attends to the diverse needs of users by creating a series of distinct and interconnected outdoor experiences.” The desire for interactivity, tangibility, and accessibility are values baked into the project foundations. Communicating the logics and aspirations of such a multivalent effort in ways that cut across class and identity barriers is a design challenge in itself.

“As urban designers, we are always looking for that representational sweet spot,” says Sirota. “An inclusionary vantage point that clarifies the layered thinking contributing to design decisions without obscuring what matters or overwhelming others.” In order to capture the clean, low-res feel that offers open access into the project,

the design team obsessively rendered a virtual environment that emulates the tactile qualities of their traditional models.

The result is CCPI.online, a navigable digital model with a candid affinity for Bing Maps that presents the entire 80acre district plan. Features include its constituent institutions, like the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Main Branch Detroit Public Library, Wayne State University, College for Creative Studies, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Also, it includes the proposed greenscape; traffic plans; walking paths, and public conversation about the myriad of issues that shape the project. Additionally, the lush bioswales contain green water management features that help to decongest aging city infrastructure overwhelmed by rising rainfall in the Great Lakes. But zoom in close enough and you will find the simulated thickness of paper in the lines of the modeled buildings, and trees rendered like they are made of extruded Plexi cut by a 1992 laser cutter with sharpied edges. The qualities of this model in the digital realm simulate precisely how the design team makes models in the physical presentation.

“I believe that the pervasive use of handheld mapping apps is changing how we understand maps, in particular in our relation to self,” says Oliver Popodich, the web designer who took on the practical considerations of implementing this vision. “These mapping apps track position, always updating the representation of the world around one’s self. As this becomes our increasingly common way of interacting with maps, we lose our dissociation from the abstracted representation of maps, and instead begin to understand it as a more literal representation - a kind of omnipresent birds-eye-view of self.”

Over the course of a month, the web team modeled every component of Midtown – the site conditions, landscape, building masses, details, and design interventions. In order to meet the strict limitations of the web and further limitations of mobile, everything was modeled relatively low poly - using as few faces as possible to create the essence of the object’s form. More complex objects, like buildings, were broken into segments based on the amount of detail. This allowed for different versions to load easily, catering to both low-powered mobile devices and more powerful computers.

Architects very rarely show work in progress, because they typically have a single client with a single concern to address. But the CCPI has 12 institutional clients, plus the city, in addition to the general public that the space will serve. CCPI’s digital presentation becomes a virtual pin-up board that reveals the process, in order to facilitate a collective vision. In the mixing and matching of painstakingly researched offerings, the team is able to show symbiotic relationships between institutions, the street, and public discourse. “It gives liberty to each stakeholder to understand the moving parts for themselves and come back to the table ready to negotiate and collaborate,” says Sirota.

These negotiations come at an especially critical time, where we see shared outdoor spaces as the current sole venue for public engagement and experiences. While emphasis on a unified cultural district landscape was already the preCOVID aim of the project, it’s become the essential worker of urban design during pandemic times, as public space becomes indispensable public infrastructure. Creating a sensibility that is tangible and physical at a time when so much has become abstracted because of COVID is yet another layer of approachability in the model. It grants the gift of imagined futures, to all of us trapped in our homes ready to plan the “next next” when we can get back out into the world.

And it seems to work! Longtime Park Shelton resident Joe Lewis, age 70, has been following the project with great interest, and jumped at the chance to navigate the proposal. “I’m excited to see a vibrant, accessible and coordinated plan,” says Lewis, who hopes that the effort will unify Detroit’s treasured cultural institutions, “to better serve the local public and draw visitors from near and far.”

Top: Susan Mosey of MDI speaking at the Detroit Public Library during a CCPI presentation. Bottom: Members of the CCPI design team engaging with Detroit community members at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History during a design workshop hosted by MDI.

Community Engagement

MDI and the CCPI design team have had to reinvent what community engagement looks like in the age of COVID-19 and developed CCPI. online, an internet-based platform to share the evolution of the design and research, and solicit feedback from the public. Prior to the pandemic, MDI hosted a large design workshop with the public at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History that attracted more than 200 people. In addition, over 1,000 comment cards were submitted by the public on the proposed design as part of an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Detroit Public Library Main Branch.

Since the pandemic began, MDI has hosted numerous Zoom meetings with the residents of the Park Shelton, the Arts Center Neighborhood, with Detroit artists and city-wide arts organizations, and just recently hosted a large metro area meeting to gain feedback on the plan. MDI has interfaced with over a dozen residentbased organizations throughout the city, including church groups, block clubs, and recreation-based organizations to elicit feedback.

In addition, 12 public panel conversations and one symposium have been held around topics of arts and cultural programming, sustainability, digital engagement, institutional resiliency, COVID-19, and more.

Additional Zoom meetings and panel discussions are planned for the remainder of 2022 and 2023 with other Detroit Neighborhood residents, arts and cultural stakeholders, and key public sector agencies. We also seek input on programming ideas both for the District and potential partnerships that could extend the Cultural Center programs into the neighborhoods.