8Mile Baseline - Final Publication

8MILE BASELINE PROJECT TITLE

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN A. ALFRED TAUBMAN COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + URBAN PLANNING A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning | University of Michigan 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard | Ann Arbor | MI | 48109-2069 | United States | 734 764 1300

8 MILE BASELINE STUDIO Omar Ali Brian Barber Alexandra Chen Ciera Clayborne Linnea Cook Brianne DuRoss Kate Flynn Safei Gu Robyn Wolochow Ya Suo PROFESSOR Rania Ghosn SPECIAL THANKS Monica Ponce De Leon, Dean Robert Fishman, Interim Chair Kathy Velikov, Networks Coordinator GUEST CRITICS Maria Arquero El Hadi Jaizairy Perry Kulper Mick McCulloch John McMorrough Dan McTavish Johnathan Puff Mireille Roddier Anya Sirota Christian Stayner Clark Thenhaus Kathy Velikov Jason Young

8MILE BASELINE

a new imagination f

The problem of the twentieth century i – W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of

for Metro Detroit

The lesson of Detroit is a warning to every city in America. It is my belief the best days for this nation are still ahead of us, if only we can confront the reality of Detroit’s demise.

is the problem of the color line. f Black Folk

Paul Kersey, Escape from Detroit

President Eisenhower Signs The Federal Aid Highway Act The Michigan State Fair Opens The Michigan State Fair served as an annual cultural event and social mixer for the state from 1905 until its closing in 2009.

1905

1935

Rapid Population Growth

The act takes forty years to complete. It’s endorsement and execution radically alters the American landscape.

Detroit’s population hits 1.85 million, making it America’s fourth-largest city, with 296,000 manufacturing jobs.

1950

Frederick Douglass Housing Project The Brewster-Douglass, or simply the Frederick Douglass Housing Projects were constructed from 1935 to 1955.

They symbolized a larger vision for African-American low-income housing. Brewster-Douglass was only one of nine proposed lowincome housing projects for the city of Detroit.

1951

1956

1958

Master Plan for Public Education In 1951 the Detroit Master Plan was published along with the Master Plan for Public Education.

This plan implemented the 4-4-4 system that set the grounds for the public education system in Detroit. Remnants of this system and its subsequent additions are evident within the district today.

Packard Motor Car Company Closes Packard Motor Car Company in Detroit, opened in 1903, is closed.

At 3,500,000-square-feet, this makes it the largest abandoned factory in the world, and is the start of Detroit’s slow decline into de-industrialization.

Hudson’s Department Store Demolition

Detroit School Busing Case In the 1970’s, the govenrment attempted to desegregate the school systems across the country through busing kids from black neighborhoods to white schools. The goal was to create a system that levelled the playing field, equalizing all the schools’ resources.

1974

1988

The 26-story Hudson’s building, in the heart of the commercial district, was imploded after enduring abandonment, years of neglect and a series of economic downturns for the city. The “Big Store” monument symbolized the boom years of Detroit and its ultimate demolition was a harbinger of future events: eventually the vacancy and blight would necessitate the demolition of over 80,000 structures, requiring massive efforts and federal assistance.

Congress enacts the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to address the impacts of foreclosure in communities hardest hit by the crisis. 30% of the funds awarded were designated specifically for demolition.

1998

2008

2002

Housing And Economic Recovery Act

2013

Eminem’s Film “8 Mile” Makes Its Cinematic Debut Michigan Central Station Closes Michigan Central Station served as the Michigan’s passenger rail depot from its opening in 1913.

At the time of its construction, it was the tallest rail station in the world, but the building was sold for a transportation center project during 1984 that never materialized.

The American hip-hop drama film chronicled the trials of a young white rapper, played by then-infamous rapper-cum-actor Eminem. The film highlighted the racial and socioeconomic conditions of the Motor City and introduced the concept of the 8Mile Baseline to a much broader swathe of the general public.

Detroit Files For Bankruptcy Detroit became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy when State-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr asked a federal judge for municipal bankruptcy protection.

9

INTRODUCTION

OPENING

10

The Spirit of Detroit, 1958. Finished after the city was already losing jobs and residents.

11

INTRODUCTION

FROM GLITTERING LIGHTS WHY CAN’T A THEATRE

BRING DETROIT’S CITIZENS

TO WHITE FLIGHT

BE A THEATRE AGAIN?

BACK HOME

OPENING

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INTRODUCTION

8MILE BASELINE Rania Ghosn

In 1937, famous photojournalist Margaret Brooke White photographed a relief line after the Ohio flood. The picture distilled in one frame the anguish that defined the Great Depression: African American men, women and children huddled in line before a billboard — on which a car bearing a beaming white family (and their dog) appears to drive confidently into the future beneath the absurdly ironic slogan, “World’s Highest Standard of Living.” How diverse is America some fifty years after the civil rights demonstrations and the 1963 March on Washington? A recent map by Justin Cable displays the population distribution of every person in America along racial and ethnic lines. The map features 308,745,538 dots, each smaller than a single pixel and each representing one person: Caucasians are blue, blacks are green, Hispanics are orange, Asians are red, and other races are brown. In Detroit, the racial divide can be shockingly exact, without much buffer. While Detroit’s land annexations left its boundaries jagged along its other borders, the northern border along Eight Mile Road remained a straight line that runs following the Michigan Baseline. Catapulted into the national media through local rapper Eminem’s film 8-Mile, the road has long served as the de facto dividing line in the most segregated American metropolitan region. It separates the dispossessed African-American urban core from the more affluent, predominantly white northern suburbs in Macomb, Oakland, and Livingston counties. As Thomas Surgue argues in The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, institutionalized racism resulted in sharply limited opportunities for Detroit blacks for most of the twentieth century. Following the 1967 race riots, regional divisions were further exacerbated according to differences in income and racial lines – white “donuts” around black holes.

Much of the approach to Detroit’s shrinking economy and demographics has favored an approach to “right-size” it. The urban narrative line is all too well familiar. From its peak population in 1950, Detroit had undergone a contraction in population, and now the city’s geographic and infrastructure footprints need to shrink to survive. Proponents of such a position have constructed a deterministic argument in disfavor of the scale of the city –that its boundaries contain an area the size of Manhattan, San Francisco and Boston combined– and proposed shrinking its size as the singular response to mitigate or the resolve the economic crisis of the city. This new model for city change is grounded in pragmatism: if a place is growing, let’s manage that growth through new infrastructure and coordination of services. If a place is shrinking, let’s manage that shrinkage by right-sizing it. For proposals such as “Detroit Future City”, that implies focusing money and resources around the islands of residential and business energy that remain in the city and turning the rest back to “nature.”

baseline (n.) /bas lin/ a line forming a basis for measurement or determining position, a datum line. fig. a minimum or starting point used for comparisons or development of thought.

8MILE BASELINE

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The 2013 Graduate Networks “Enclaves and Utopias” Studio invited thirteen sections to propose architectural proposals as plausible possible future worlds for Detroit. Echoing O.M. Ungers’ Green Archipelago for Berlin, the overall studio framework identified a series of distinct enclaves in Detroit as the grounds for such new imagined realities: Belle Isle, Delray, Eastern Market, Hamtramck, Highland Park, New Center. However, visions to shrink Detroit to its financially viable sub-islands eclipse the geographic scale of the metropolis.

They seldom deploy the agency of architecture towards a managerial urbanism that serves to restrict the urban footprint of a dire economically condition. In response to such setup, this unit proposes the following provocation. Rather than automatically shrinking Detroit and zooming in to such islands, do we benefit from zooming out and addressing the city’s growth and demise at a metropolitan scale? What worldviews does a utopian-geographic framework foreground and how does it propose to inform and reform the urban social contract in America?

The shrinking city portrays a different economic profile when framed at the metropolitan scale. Metro Detroit is a growing region with the population of the three counties that make up the Detroit metropolitan area steadily growing since 1950. Its suburbs are among the richest in the nation. Oakland County, for example, is the fourth wealthiest county in the United States, of counties with a million or more residents. Not everyone is wealthy, to be sure, but the median household in the region earns close to $50,000 a year, and unemployment is no higher than the nation’s average. The median household in Birmingham, Michigan, just across the border that delineates the city of Detroit, earned more than $94,000 last year; in nearby Bloomfield Hills — still within the Detroit metropolitan area — the median was more than $150,000. In other words, as Robert Reich notes in “Detroit and the Bankruptcy of America’s Social Contract,” “much in modern America depends on where you draw boundaries, and who’s inside and who’s outside. Who is included in the social contract? If ‘Detroit’ is defined as the larger metropolitan area that includes its suburbs, Detroit has enough money to provide all its residents with adequate if not good public services, without falling into bankruptcy.”1 The studio critiques the territorial condition of unevenness and discrimination by formulating a political-aesthetic project on the division line between the city and its suburbs. The utopian impulse of the 8Mile Baseline Studio is anchored in the politics of the present. Rather that pursuing old pipe dreams of idealist formal configurations, it connects architecture with the existing spatial order, with its flows and boundaries. The studio elucidates the links between “designed” urban structures and the manifestations of crisis in Detroit, highlighting in particular differences –such as income, taxation, demographics, vacancy, construction permits, number of police or firemen, budgets of public schools and parks, etc.– that are rendered sharply visible across the 8Mile city limit. In this sense, utopia is a critique of systematic exclusion, domination, and oppression; a critique aimed at cultivating new imaginaries that would animate actions towards injustice embedded in spatial organization. Utopia’s most 15

INTRODUCTION

decisive feature is thus the criticism of the existing order: it chooses in the present the seeds for the expression of radical difference.2 The proposed projects aspire to go however beyond rant, analysis, or mere critique, of yet another research project and resist becoming another promise to solve the crises of the city. Such imaginary is not always an effortless reconciliation. It does not imply a “clean” and quaint city where the “good citizens” mingle on its streets, crowding its beautiful parks, and living there happily ever after. The 8Mile Baseline is political in the sense that it entails antagonism, dissensus, and contestation. It reifies in the most radical ways the splintering forces of the metropolis – conditions that might otherwise remain ungraspable – and turn them into architectural form that addresses the collective form of the city.3 In 1961 Henri Lefebvre published a short essay defending the concept of what he called “experimental utopia,” which he defined as “imaginary variations on themes and exigencies defined by the real as understood in the broadest sense: by the problems posed by reality and by the virtualities held within it”; it was “the exploration of human possibilities, with the help of the image and the imagination, accompanied by a ceaseless criticism and a ceaseless reference to the given problematic in the ‘real.’”4 In a sense, the 8Mile Baseline ten projects bizarrely lay bare truths we somehow relate to, almost instinctively.

Collectively, the studio proposes a baseline, a datum line that soon becomes more real than objective reality itself.

1 Robert Reich, Detroit, and the Bankruptcy of America’s Social Contract, July 20, 2013. http://robertreich.org/post/55976062830 2 Ernst Bloch, Principle of Hope (Cambridge, MA: 1986 [1954]).

3 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).

4 Henri Lefebvre, “Utopie Experimentale: Pour un nouvel urbanisme,” Revue Francaise de Sociologie (July–September 1961): 192.

8MILE BASELINE

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STUDIO STRUCTURE

STEP 1 Learning From...

Analysis of the tools, concerns, and structures of the case study manifestos and re-projection toward an 8Mile Baseline Manisfesto.

1958 Yona Friedman 1972 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, and Steven Izenor 1972 Rem Koolhaas 1978 Rem Koolhaas 1999 Teddy Cruz 2001 Junzo Kuroda and Moyomo Kaijima 2007 Pier Vittorio Aureli, et al.

2010 Kirsten Geers and David van Severen 2010 Salottobuono 2012 51N4E

Spatial City Learning from Las Vegas Delirious New York Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture Architecture of the Borderlands Made in Tokyo: Guide Book Brussels: A Manifesto Towards the Capital of Europe Office, Obstruction: A grammar for the city Manual of Decoloniation Reasons For Walling A House

STEP 2 Issue - Position - Strategy Investigation of an issue, a position and a strategy at the scale of Metro Detroit and through the lens of the 8Mile division line. Topics include: structuring land, programming ground, landmarks, infrastructures and territorialities.

STEP 3 Delimit Identification of a one square mile area within the site of 8Mile for finer grain study and proposals.

STEP 4 Individual Manifesto Student developed STEP 5 Manifesto: 8Mile Baseline In the final step, students coordinated their individual proposals into a comprehensive vision articulated as a collective manifesto outlining ten future visions for the 8Mile Baseline. The result is presented in the following pages...

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THEME

Structuring Land How has the arrangement and activity of land evolved over time and what role did the dividing line play in that? How were the growth and de-growth patterns of Detroit and its adjacent counties influenced by their relations? How are structure of land use, financing, taxation, mortgage, ownership, building permits, parking meters, light-fixtures, neighborhood associations similar or different along the baseline? What are some of their physical parameters?

Programming Ground What are significant civic spaces and programs in Detroit and the neighboring counties -- schools, golf courses, churches, malls, community gardens, liquor stores? What are some negative spaces -- voids? What are built/unbuilt/occupied/abandoned/vacant grounds and what are their materialities, surfaces, etc?

Landmarks What are everyday and ordinary sites and what are the significant landmarks along the Road? What are their relations to the road? What are some building typologies and forms that mark the road -- gas stations, strip clubs, industrial buildings, parking lots? How is the road itself a landmark?

Infrastructures What infrastructural systems run across the dividing line, and what are those neatly confined to one side -- food, water, electricity, waste, mobility, etc. What are significant industrial or infrastructural sites in the vicinity -- railroad stations, power plants and what larger scales do they operate within -- Michigan, Great Lakes, North America, the World?

Territorialities What administrative and legal borders mark the dividing line(s)? What are their topographies, physicalities, levels of permeability? How wide is the dividing line, and what other infrastructures or territorial markers delimit it -- roads, rail stations, interchanges, tunnels, bridges? What are related structures of exclusion--securitization, neighborhood watches, fences? What are some islands or pockets on either side or across the dividing line? What symbols reinforce the presence and identity of each county on its land or mark its presence in the other? What are “neutral,” “refuge,” or “intermediate” zones within the larger division?

STUDIO STRUCTURE

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STRUCTURING LAND Linnea Cook and Robyn Wolochow Single Family Homes

Retail

Civic

ISSUE On both the north and south sides of the 8Mile Baseline the single-family home persists as the dominant typology. While destinations such as schools, parks, churches, and retail exist within this condition and offer several basic amenities, poor integration of land-use typologies causes vacant and abandoned homes where “destinations” are either under maintained or simply do not exist. Within these “destination deserts,” dilapidated homes and overgrown land parcels catalyze further vacancies.

POSITION Privatization of communal-based activities within individual land parcels has replaced alternative forms of civic engagement. New locations for community-based activities and communal program must be developed and better integrated into the existing land structure in order to improve the sense of community and the overall building conditions.

STRATEGY Our strategies focus on an assemblage of “new monuments,” offering new forms of civic engagement that do not currently exist in the chosen site. These newly created nodes will provide formal and programmatic integration within the single family condition, facilitating flows across 8 Mile Road.

Strategy 1: Implicit Integration of Civic Nodes The first strategy superimposes a grid over the existing fabric of single-family homes and creates new civic nodes at the intersection points using available abandoned and vacant parcels. These civic nodes are experienced individually, but create an implicit network of civic activity.

Strategy 2: Explicit Integration of Civic Nodes The second strategy creates a more explicit network between proposed civic nodes, with new pedestrian walkways connecting new structures and bridging the dividing infrastructures of 8 Mile Road and Chrysler Freeway. These new pathways incorporate retail and other commercial programs, creating a more walkable urbanism.

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STRUCTURING LAND

De-Privatizing the Single Family Home

08

01

02

03

04

05

09

07

06

10

11

12

13

LEGEND: Single Family Home Program | Public Equivalent

01 01

04

07

02

05

09

03

01

Kids’ Room | Nursery/Daycare

02

Sitting Room | Public Library

03

Family Room | Movie Theater

04

Laundry Room | Laundromat

05

Exercise Room | Public Gym

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Home Office | Internet Cafe

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Master Bath | Public Sauna

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Master Bedroom | Hotel

09

Hallway | Museum/Gallery

10

Dining Room | Restaurant

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Kitchen | Cafe

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Closet | Public Storage

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Crafts Room | Arts Center

06

10

ISSUE, POSITION, STRATEGY

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SITE 1: No Destination / Poor Conditions

SITE 2: Good/Bad Destinations Create Good/Bad Conditions

Hayden St

Mound Rd

Albany Ave

Syracuse Ave

Blackmare Ave

Panama St

Cyman Ave

E. 8 Mile Rd

Caldwell St

Bloom St

Moenart St

Keystone St

Conley Ave

Hamlet St

Amrad St

Outer Dr. E

Outer Dr. E

Lincoln Ave. Veronica Ave.

e.

Beechwood

SITE 3: Good/Integrated Destination Create Good Conditions

Gra

Beechwood Ave.

Eecloo Ave.

tio

t Av

Sidonie Ave.

Sherman Ave.

Ly

e. t Av Collingham Dr.

Trix Elementary School

Marbud Ave.

Bringard Dr.

Regent Dr.

Anvil Ave.

Edmore Dr.

Bringard Dr.

Eastburn St.

Reno Ave.

Wish Egan Field Rossini Dr.

Mohican Ave.

Carlisle St.

Edmore Dr.

State Fair St.

Gra tio

Carlisle St.

Collingham Dr.

Schoenherr St.

e. t Av

Hayes Ave. Wellington Ave.

E. 8 Mile Rd

STRUCTURING LAND

e.

Gra

Schoenherr St.

Freeman St.

19

Av

tio

dia

Building Conditions and Land-Use Distribution

8 MILE RD

Site 1: No destination, poor conditions

Site 2: Good/bad destination, good/bad conditions

Site 3: Good destinations, good conditions

Site locations along 8 Mile Road

LEGEND: Conditions of Buildign Typologies Along 8 Mile Road SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES: Occupied - Well Maintained

Occupied - Needs Repairs

Abandoned

Vacant - Well Maintained

Vacant - Poorly Maintained PIT-STOPS: Occupied - Well Maintained

Occupied - Poorly Maintained

Abandoned DESTINATIONS: Has Amenities - Well Maintained

Has Amenities - Poorly Maintained No Amenities - Well Maintained

No Amenities - Poorly Maintained

ISSUE, POSITION, STRATEGY

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STRATEGY 1: IMPLICIT INTEGRATION OF CIVIC NODES

LEGEND: PROPOSED: New Civic Node New Civic Boundary Proposed Location for New Civic Node

EXISTING: Vacant Single-Family Parcel Abandoned Single-Family Home Occupied Single Family Parcel Civic Building Civic Zone Commercial Building Commercial Zone

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STRUCTURING LAND

STRATEGY 2: EXPLICIT INTEGRATION OF CIVIC NODES

Superimposition of the Woodward Plan

Polynuclear Nodal Connections

New Pedestrian Civic Pathways

LEGEND: PROPOSED: Civic Node Pedestrian Walkway Relocated Commercial Space

EXISTING: Vacant Single-Family Parcel Abandoned Single-Family Home Occupied Single Family Parcel Civic Building Civic Zone Commercial Building Commercial Zone

ISSUE, POSITION, STRATEGY

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abandoned and vacant, we are shrinking‌ into new cities: islands of hope.

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STRUCTURING LAND

PARCEL TAKEOVER Robyn Wolochow

Shrinking Away Since its peak in the late 1950s, Detroit has been a shrinking city. From a population of nearly 2 million, it has shrunk to its present population of just over 700,000 people.

This decline has left the city in ruin. Abandoned homes, vacant land parcels, and poor conditions have taken over the landscape. While this spread of ruin has affected the majority of the city, perhaps most affected have been the residential neighborhoods just outside the urban downtown core. These neighborhoods, already planned as low-density residential areas with no programmatic or formal variation within the field condition of single-family homes, have become increasingly vacant and poorly-maintained.

A Parcelized System of Private Program The original plan for these single-family neighborhoods, developed in the early 1900s, broke up the available land into individual land parcels, to be purchased by the newly created auto-industry-dependent middle class. These parcels, each approximately 35 feet by 100 feet, are poorly occupied, with less than fifty percent of the available land area taken up by the home itself. The remaining land is left vacant as driveway, garage, or yard. Though idyllic aspects of the American Dream, these residential components further decrease already-low population densities. Additionally, the privatized lifestyle of the single-family home eliminates civic involvement and community investment, which characterize healthy, viable, and self-sustaining communities.

Cities Within The City Addressing these three issues of single-family parcelization, lack of civic program, and a shrinking population, the following proposal seeks to create urban pockets of density at strategic locations along 8 Mile Road and throughout Detroit. At these locations, new civic program occupied within large new “superblocks” will consolidate the population into a more civic form of living, creating a stronger sense of community and reducing the overwhelming sense of vacancy. Between these megastructures, vacant and abandoned land parcels will be converted to create new retail and small-business opportunities, increasing economic vitality and strengthening the network between the new civic nodes. These newly re-programmed land parcels will create a continuous network of street-level commercial program that fully integrates and connects to the proposed civic “superblocks.”

The new “cities within the city” will function as archipelago islands of density. The form of these structures, the scale of which contrasts significantly with that of the adjacent single-family homes, utilize different formal languages to incorporate areas of exterior public space. These proposed structures shrink the city to points of urban density as a way to respond to the dramatic drop in Detroit’s population. The existing land structure is re-parcelized by re-directing vehicular and pedestrian traffic, changing the existing residential grid, and offering alternative forms to the standard rectangular land parcel.

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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Parcelization Single-Family Homes: A Field Condition

Typical Residential Parcel Organization:

Single-Family Parcel Configuration: 35% BUILT AREA RESIDENTIAL ROAD

PRIVATE DRIVEWAY

PRIVATE WALKWAY ABANDONED HOME SET-BACK PUBLIC SIDEWALK

Parcel Size: 35’ x 100’ Area: 3,5000 sqft

Program Distribution Commercial/Retail: Along Major Roads

CIVIC/INSTITUTIONAL: SCATTERED SPARINGLY

DETROIT, 2013

Left: These three maps succinctly summarize the poor integration and unequal distribution of land use typologies throughout the city of Detroit. Most evident is the overwhelming domination of the single-family parcel. Of the three maps, this map alone clearly articulates the full area of study, as the majority of the land is occupied by this low-density typology.

The second map efficiently describes the strategic placement of commercial program along major roads, in a network of intersecting linear paths of vehicular movement. This land-use organization creates a dependency on the private automobile as a means of accessing available amenities. The third map, showing civic and institutional programs such as parks, schools, religious institutions, and community centers, demonstrates the seemingly random placement of community program throughout the city.

The total area of this civically-engaged program represents a mere five percent of the total land area.

Coupled with Detroit’s major decline of industry and resulting abandonment, these realities of the city’s programmatic landuse distribution only further decrease walkability, economic viability, community development, and desirability as an urban destination. For Detroit to regain its oncesuccessful vitality as a city, high-densities within urban centers need to be established that allow for mixed-use residential, civic, and commercial integration.

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STRUCTURING LAND

Vacancy: A Shrinking City Forms Of Urban Shrinking

Hypothetical Method of Shrinking: By Area

Proposed Method of Shrinking: Into Consolidated Nodes

Actual Method of Shrinking in Detroit: The Movement of a Distressed Population

8 MILE ROAD

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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Current Conditions: Juxtaposition of Occupancy and Vacancy

ABANDONED FOR 2 YEARS RESIDENTS FOR 40+ YEARS

MARY STAN

CONSOLIDATING DENSITY: THE ARCHIPELAGO SUPERBLOCK

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STRUCTURING LAND

Form Typologies of Proposed Civic Nodes: Programmatic Distribution PUBLIC SPACE WITHIN ENCLOSED COURTYARD

NEWLY PROPOSED PROGRAM Automobile Services: 1. Zip-Car Car Sharing Center Industrial Sales/Services: 2. Re-use Center 3. House Conversion Center 4. Re-Programming Center 5. Structural Engineering Services 6. Contracting Corporation Financial Services: 7. Finance Education Program 8. Small-Business Finance Center

PUBLIC SPACE ALONG EXTERIOR PERIMETER

PUBLIC SPACE ALONG PATHS OF MOVEMENT

PUBLIC SPACE TO RE-ROUTE VEHICULAR FLOWS

Retail/Amenities: 9. Post Office 10. Laundromat 11. Café 12. Local Restaurant 13. Kroger Grocery Story 14. City Target 15. City Home Depot 16. Dry Cleaning 17. Public Gym 18. Internet Café Community Services: 19. Employment Services 20. Career Assistance 21. Tutoring Center 22. Skills Workshops 23. Tech Workshops 24. Re-housing Services 25. Real-estate Services

26. Community Information 27. After-School Care 28. Neighborhood Safety Center 29. Volunteering Center 30. Building Workshops 31. Nursery Institutional: 32. K-12 Charter School 33. Public School(s) 34. Synagogue 35. Mosque Recreational/Cultural: 36. Well-maintained Park 37. Community Recreation Center 38. Crafts Center 39. Movie Theater 40. Music Hall 41. Museum 42. Neighborhood History Center 43. Arcade 44. Art Gallery 45. Mural-Arts Center 45. Public Library 46. Non-Denominational Faith Center 47. Community College 48. Tech Start Up Office: 49. Business Offices 50. Artist Work Spaces 51. Medical/Law/Engineering Offices

LEGEND Multi-Family Residential

New Civic/Institutional Program

New Outdoor Public Space

Street-Level Commercial/Retail

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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Chosen Site of Study: The Infrastructural Intersection of 8 Mile Road & Chrysler Freeway

8 Mile Road within greater Detroit

Chosen site of study at the intersection of 8 Mile Road and Highway 75

Potential Placement of Superblocks Along 8 Mile and Throughout Detroit

8 MILE ROAD

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STRUCTURING LAND

Location of proposed civic nodes

Street-Level Network of Commercial Program Between Proposed Nodes

LEGEND Proposed locations of civic nodes at areas of high vacancy/abandonment Street-level retail at civic nodes Converted vacant and abandoned land parcels to commercial/retail Vacant & abandoned single-family parcels

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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Cities Within the City: Large Scale Civic Nodes

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STRUCTURING LAND

PARCEL TAKEOVER |

THE ARCHIPELAGO SUPERBLOCK New Civic Nodes: Parcel Layout Re-Organization ROBYN WOLOCHOW

PUBLIC SPACE ALONG PATHS OF MOVEMENT

PUBLIC SPACE TO RE-ROUTE VEHICULAR FLOWS

PUBLIC SPACE ALONG EXTERIOR PERIMETER

PUBLIC SPACE WITHIN ENCLOSED COURTYARD

PROPOSED CIVIC NODES: ARRANGING PUBLIC SPACE

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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PARCEL TAKEOVER | SUPERBLOCK TYPE A: THE PUBLIC COURTYARD ROBYN WOLOCHOW

Superblock Type A: The Public Courtyard

UPPER LEVEL PLAN: RESIDENTIAL LAYOUT

CIVIC NODE: GROUND LEVEL PLAN 50 ft

100 ft

200 ft

SITE SECTION: FORMAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NODE, PUBLIC SPACE, ADJACENT HOMES

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STRUCTURING LAND

UPPER LEVEL PLAN: CIVIC/INSTITUTIONAL LAYOUT

PARCEL TAKEOVER | SUPERBLOCK TYPE B: THE PUBLIC PERIMETER ROBYN WOLOCHOW

Superblock Type B: The Public Perimeter

UPPER LEVEL PLAN: RESIDENTIAL LAYOUT

CIVIC NODE: GROUND LEVEL PLAN 50 ft

100 ft

UPPER LEVEL PLAN: CIVIC/INSTITUTIONAL LAYOUT

200 ft

SITE SECTION: FORMAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NODE, PUBLIC SPACE, ADJACENT HOMES

PARCEL TAKEOVER

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an attempt to unite communities long since divided by the highway aims at producing new modes of interaction--sometimes uncomfortable ones.

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STRUCTURING LAND

UNITED HIGHWAY Linnea Cook

What began as an American Utopia – the car, the single-family home, and the highway that made it all possible – eventually transformed the landscape into a dystopia.

At the intersection of 8 Mile and 75, two highways split the surrounding neighborhood into four quadrants. The implementation of these highways not only reinforces segregation but also privileges the automobile and the single-family home as dominant typologies. As a result, individuals become further removed from civic engagement outside of the home.

Due to its convenient location, the highways offer a new opportunities for citizens to participate in collective living. Four civic nodes at each dividing point could both gather people and act as permeable boundaries, allowing individuals to flow within and through.

By collecting families and individuals from diverse social and economic backgrounds, each node effectively acts as a social condenser. In the book Content, OMA defines the intent of the social condenser as “programmatic layering upon vacant terrain to encourage dynamic coexistence of activities and to generate through their interference, unprecedented events.” In United Highway, vacant land, abandoned homes, and the highways serve as the vacant terrain, while the activities are those of the single-family home.

In order to explore the relationship between a given node and its adjacent context, the following work zooms in on one of the four proposed nodes. The development of the work focuses on ways in which to encourage communal-based living at two scales while providing new economic opportunities particularly to families living South of the 8 Mile divide.

UNITED HIGHWAY

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Utopia on the Horizon

Towards the American Dream

600 spectators at a time look into America’s future Utopia where 14-lane highways allow traffic to flow seamlessly towards a new horizon.

The Federal Aid Highway Act sets into motion a plan to achieve the Utopia promised to Futurama’s exhibition goers. Unfortunately, the Act “federalizes state and local road-building practices and ideals one which preserves standards and arrangements long presumed just and normal by engineers, truckers, congressmen, and governors.”

General Motors Futurama Exhibit, New York World’s Fair, 1938

A single vanishing point on this new horizon line creates the privileged view from the highway – an endless one-point perspective that shields travelers from “outmoded business sections and undesirable slum areas.”

-recorded voice, Futurama exhibit

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STRUCTURING LAND

Eisenhower Signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, 1956

-Mark H. Rose Interstate: Express Highway Politics, 1941-1956

A Realized Dream

Utopia to Dystopia

Detroit’s History

American’s view the highway as a success. The roads link Americans to their suburban fantasy.

Each home in combination with a private yard and automobile contains the “fundamental components of the new identity kit for middleclass status.’” The suburbs are “reinterpreted as the ultimate path to material success and the true expression of the American Dream.”

Poorer areas with little economic power suffer from the lines drawn by city planners and government officials. These lines turn into highways that create economic and social divides.

The map below represents abandoned homes that proliferate Detroit’s landscape, which illustrates the negative effects of sprawl.

Suburbs, Post-War America, 1950-60’s

-Paul Knox Vulgaria: The Reenchantment of Suburbia

Biproducts of Highways and Suburbs

Industry Moves, People Move, Vacancy Remains

In addition, highways enable the suburbs to sprawl in every direction. The single-family home dominates the landscape and communal-based living becomes privatized, which turns the home into an isolated island.

This condition is represented in the map below, which illustrates land-use in Detroit (2008).

Single-family home Multi-family home

UNITED HIGHWAY

38

3/4 mi le (d iam

Existing Automobile / Bus Flows with Points of Attraction

) er et

3/4 mi le (d iam

Proposed Pedestrian and Bicycle Flows with New Points of Attraction at Civic Nodes

39

) er et

STRUCTURING LAND

Proposed Locations for Civic Nodes

OCCUPIED HOME ABANDONED HOME SECONDARY NODE VACANT / ABANDONED LOT

UNITED HIGHWAY

40

Activities of the Single-Family Home and the Spaces they Inhabit (A / D) To Relax To Read To Discuss To Meet To Write

(B) (F) (A)

(C) (E)

(B) To Work To Call / Talk To Write To Read

(D)

(C) To Eat To Discuss To Meet To Play Games To Work (D) To Eat To Discuss To Meet To Play Games To Work (E) To Wash To Dry To Fold

(B)

(A)

(C)

(D)

(F) To Go to the Bathroom To Bathe To Refresh To Change

Mobile / Does Not Neet Resources (A / D) Lounge Furniture (B) Desk Chair and Table (C) Dining Room or Kitchen Table

Immobile / Needs Resources (E) Utility Sink (water) Washer / Dryer (water / electricity) (F) Water Closet (water) Bathtub (water) Sink (water) (G) Kitchen Sink (water) Dishwasher (water) Refidgerator (electricity) Stove (gas / electric)

41

STRUCTURING LAND

(G)

(F)

(E)

(G)

Roof: Water Collection as Promenade

Above the areas needing water resources on both the second and third floor exists water collection pools on the roof. Voids allowing light penetrate the building exist in between the pools. Occupants have the freedom to stroll on the paths created in the between the pools.

Third Floor: the home’s ‘first floor’

Includes communal kitchens that also serve as a culinary institute, dining ares located in between the kitchens, bathrooms / laundry rooms that are grouped with the kitchens, and work spaces / ‘living rooms’ towards the perimeter.

Second Floor: the ‘Back Yard’

Includes a track, workout areas around the perimeter, a farmer’s market in the center, child care, a basketball court, and a swimming pool with locker rooms A ramp that also serves at the structure of the building allows pedestrians and bikers to flow in and out of the building on either side of 8 Mile.

On 8 Mile: Diverting Traffic Flows

At this location, 8 Mile is elevated to accommodate traffic flowing of highway 75. In order to provide convenient access from 8 Mile, one lane splits off and allows cars to park and access the node at this level through a vestibule connected to the bus stop below and the activities that occur in the upper two floors.

Street Level: Bus Stop as Entryway

Utilizing the unclaimed land between the road and the highway, a bus stop and waiting area allows both pubic buses and school buses to drop off children and parents coming home from work.

UNITED HIGHWAY

42

Re-Claiming the Highway Proposed Territories for Occupation in Relation to existing transportation and automobile flows The civic node taps into the existing bus stops, which are currently just signs and proposes areas for people to sit and wait or access the many activities directly above.

Eastbound

17 Southbound

494 Northbound

494

North / South Section at 8 Mile

43

STRUCTURING LAND

Re-Claiming the Land Connection between proposed Farmer’s Market at Node and the Adjacent Community

As abandoned lots have increased, there has been a trend towards repurposing these lots by adjacent neighbors - this new super plot of land becomes a “blot.” If residents South of 8 mile purchase these blots – they could make a profit from their land. They could then tap into a second trend that is occurring in Detroit – converting vacant land into farms. The food grown could be sold at the node(s) strategically placed along the highway. This food could be purchased by the users of the communal kitchens conveniently located above the market, which includes both locals and student’s of the culinary institute the uses the kitchen during the day.

2

1

3 2

4 1

3

2

1

2

3 2

1

1

UNITED HIGHWAY

44

Second Floor: the ‘Back Yard’

(1)

Bike and Pedestrian Path

(4)

(2)

(3)

(8)

Running Track

(3)

Fitness Stations (with Gym Equipment)

(7)

(4)

Basketball Court

(5)

Farmer’s Market

(6)

Children’s Center (Child Care)

(2)

(7)

(9)

Swimming Pool

(8)

Locker Rooms

(9)

Light Wells

45

STRUCTURING LAND

(1)

(5)

(6)

Third Floor: the Home’s ‘First Floor’

(1)

Commumal Kitchens / Culinary Institute

(7)

(2)

Bathrooms

(3)

Laundry Rooms

(5)

(4)

(2) (3)

Light Wells

(5) (1)

(6)

Shared Resources

(6)

Dining Areas

(4)

(7)

Work / Living Room

UNITED HIGHWAY

46

INFRASTRUCTURES Omar Ali and Brianne DuRoss

Issue

Positional Interests

Due to the recent economic downturn of Detroit, industry in the city proper has begun to diminish and move north of the border, causing vacant factories and industrial sites to emerge south of 8 Mile. Although the railroads that intersect 8 Mile Road provide movement and access to the industry located along the track, the monofunctional use of the rail for purely industrial purposes has become obsolete because of mass de industrialization in Detroit.

MULTI-PURPOSE RAIL

MONOFUNCTIONAL

MULTIFUNCTIONAL

Position Our aim is to create multiple couplings outside of the existing rail and industrial program. These projected couplings will take advantage of the spatial qualities created by the intersection of infrastructures situated along 8 Mile, while providing multiple opportunities along the industrial corridors.

REIMAGINE SPACES EFFECTED BY RAIL

Strategy

FORDIST MODE OF PRODUCTION

POST-FORDIST

How could the railroad become multifunctional as opposed to its current monofunctionality?

Strategy 1: Recycle Centers As a way to respond to the abandoned factories and industrial sites, a system for recycling the old machinery and materials will be put into play. This strategy will attempt to bridge the gaps between infrastructure, industry and residential neighborhoods, while creating a linear network which operates at both the scale of the neighborhood as well as at the scale of the industrial corridor. This utilizes the leftovers of industrial production, while cleaning up industrial sites which spread waste to the adjacent residential areas. The industrial site conditions which once created unwanted vacancies, can now incorporate the local neighborhoods into on site recycling.

Benefits and Incentives Present Day

Macomb County

PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS

Strategy 2: Linear City The Linear City serves to link unrelated adjacencies along the rail, while also connecting to a larger, more regional scale. The linear strip will begin at 9 Mile and extend to the Amtrak station north of Wayne State University, employing a mixed-use program to creates transition zones across the rail corridor. The monofunctional rail corridor will then operate as a more diverse programmatic infrastructure, incorporating the needs of the surrounding small scale programs, such as the residential and small business zones, while providing future programmatic opportunities along the rail itself.

109 INFRASTRUCTURES

Wayne County

PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS

Ford Era

PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS

INDUSTRY CROSSES OVER

PLANT REHABILITATION DISTRICT EXEMPTION

SUBSIDIES

INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES EXEMPTIONS

PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS

Comparative Analysis of De-Industrialization

Monofunctional Rail Corridors

issue

Diagrams explaining the vacancies, transport modes, and programmatic zones altered by deindustrialization.

Grand Trunk Railroad Grand Trunk Railroad

Montreal

Toronto

Portland

Port Huron

Detroit Chicago Toledo

The Grand Trunk Railroad creates a network of industrial programs centered around Detroit.

ISSUE, POSITION, STRATEGY 110

The Industrial Leftovers

Type 1 Shared Industrial + Residential

9 mile

Boulevards which separate industrial land use from residential due to lack of program, boundary, + form

8 mile

Type 2 Vacant Industrial Sites Conditions of open fields created from abaonded and vacated industrial programs

7 mile

Railbanks are used for industrial waste + leftovers, creating long, open fields along the stretch of the rail’s infrastructure

Gra

nd

Tru n

kR

Michigan Cen

ailr oad

tral Railroad

Type 3 Scrap Sites

Vacant Industiral Sites Abandoned Industrial Buildings Industrial Buildings and Sites For Sale Aberrant Conditions

Programmatic Adjacencies

Rail Infrastructure

111 INFRASTRUCTURES

Deployed Strategy

Industrial Facilities

Residential Neighborhoods

Recycle Centers

Industrial scrap site is located along the rail and adjacent to residential housing

Components of the structure exploded in axonometric

The site is cleaned and material begins to be sorted and transported to waste and recycling centers

Scrap sites become centers for recycling of industrial materials and waste Material is taken to a facility nearby to be processed as new usable pre-cast concrete and steel

Presenting the possibility of bridging two sites over the rail

Eventually, the recycled material (concrete, steel, etc.) makes its way back to the site to construct the built structure.

Linear City 9 Mile

M4 R1

M4 M4

R1 M4

R1

M3

88 mile Mile

R1 M4

M4

M4 R1 M4

M4 B4

R1

M4 M4

R1

7 Mile

B4 R1

R1

R1

M4 M2

M4

M4 R2

M4

McNichols R2

B4

M4

B4 R1

R1

M2

R1

R2

M4

M4

R1

Lynch

M4 R1

M4 R1

B4

B4

M4 R2 R1

M2 R1

R2 R1

M4 M4

R2 R3

Woodward

B4 M4

Residential Districts

Industrial Districts

Business Districts

R1 Single-Family Residential R2 Two-Family Residential

M2 Restricted Industrial M3 General Industrial M4 Intensive Industrial

B4 General Business B5 Major Business

Boundaries

M4

M3

Zoning Districts Classifications

Edsel Ford Fwy

Strong Weak New possible connections

M4

Amtrak Station

ISSUE, POSITION, STRATEGY 112

enclaves are an inevitable consequence of sprawl; embracing exclusion is a way to imagine the future of the city.

113 INFRASTRUCTURES

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT Omar Ali

Exclusion is a theme not uncommon in the annals of Detroit. The city is well known for the series of exclusionary tactics it has deployed since the 1940s; for instance, the Coffin of Peace, and the prolific Wailing Wall, also known as Birwood Wall. The Coffin of Peace was a series of housing projects that were pushed to the periphery of the city. These strategies were meant to push African-Americans to the borders so the white population would remain in the city and stop moving out to the suburbs. Out of the nine proposed housing projects, only three were built. Curiously, they were not on the periphery but in the downtown area. The Wailing Wall was partly related to one of the housing projects. The wall separated a black and white neighborhood and was erected by a housing developer. The developer was denied permission to construct his low-income housing project due to the close proximity to an all-white neighborhood (Palmer Woods). The wall was meant to divide the two territories to allow the construction of the housing project. This plan actually worked, but the housing project was still never constructed.

In this project, exclusion is not viewed negatively, but is instead utilized as a critically charged way to look at the city, and a potential avenue to relieve Detroit of its current economic woes. By reaching out to the more affluent neighborhoods for financial support, the city of Detroit can realize its utopia: the bail out. In return, the enclaves gain control of their boundary conditions.

The three projects play out proposed scenarios and use their own ideas and interests as points of departure for speculative projection.

Palmer Woods is the first biopsy. It is one of, or possibly the highest grossing collective in the Metro Detroit area. It is well-known for deploying exclusionary tactics to seclude itself from the blight that surrounds its neighborhood.

In 2013 the neighborhood crafted a strategy to further exclude itself with vehicular boundaries at each entrance from Woodward Avenue, forcing residents and others strolling through to go around to the main, guarded gateway. Palmer Woods achieves its ideal situation through a moat that secludes it but also offers more beauty to the other side of the neighborhood, and possible public space for fishing, swimming, ice skating, and more.

Hamtramck--not as well off but with an established history of seclusion-proposes a twenty-foot wall as well as entrance to the city for only Hamtramck locals. They realize their utopia with a wall and customs system that filters out Detroiters with no business in the enclave. The architecture of the portals and walls is meant to be monumental and all-encompassing.

The final case study is of the Grosse Pointe Cities to the east of Detroit. Grosse Pointe openly aspires to cut roads off from Detroit. After granted control of the border condition, Grosse Pointers create commercial districts that aggressively cut off roads from Detroit. 8 Mile is cut off on the border between Detroit and Grosse Pointe by a crescent shaped shopping mall erected in the place of the road. The form of the building is inherently exclusionary as it turns its back to one side, and opens up to another.

Exclusionary Tales for Detroit aspires to re-envision the city in a way that does not simply accept negatives at face value, but instead aims to turn perceived negatives into plausible positives.

EXCLUSIONARY TALES 114

Kevyn Orr’s Emergency Plan for Detroit

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT

$ $ $

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$

$

$

$

$

$

$

$

$ $

$ $

$ $

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DETROIT BANKRUPTCY

DETROIT EMERGENCY MANAGER, KEVYN ORR TAKES A STAND IN HEARING

1940

As a way to bail out the city of Detroit, Kevyn Orr is calling to the outside towns, suburbs and enclaves to help the city in return for full control over the border condition between their land and the city of Detroit.

The Wa

Coffin of Peace, low income housing projects for Detroit Unbuilt projects along Eight Mile

Unbuilt, on the periphery

built

115 INFRASTRUCTURES Built projects, 1940

Major Players

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o Wo

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ard dw en Av ue

PALMER WOODS

HAMTRAMCK

GROSSE POINTE

Hamtramck Council 2013

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Hours 24/7 City Hall enalty orously Fight Crime Vig the City ts Stree an Cle Wall to enter the - Require ID to city xes Ta - Lower

Detroit

Grosse Pointe

Detroit

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Detroit

Grosse Pointe

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Detroit

Grosse Pointe

EXCLUSIONARY TALES 116

Palmer Woods MOATS, BOATS AND WATERFALLS

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT PALMER WOODS | MOATS BOATS AND WATERFALLS

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT PALMER WOODS | MOATS BOATS AND WATERFALLS

117 INFRASTRUCTURES

EXCLUSIONARY TALES 118

Hamtramck WALLED CITY

ck for Hamtram 13 20 il nc ou City C rs

Penalty - Instant Death in the City - Free Parking Wall to - Build a 20 foot Protect the City the Busi-Reconstruct ness District

l Hou - 24/7 City Hal Vigorously - Fight Crime - Clean Streets enter the to - Require ID city - Lower Taxes

ck for Hamtram 2013 City Council h Penalty - Instant Deat in the City - Free Parking ot Wall to - Build a 20 fo ty Protect the Ci the Busi-Reconstruct ness District

119 INFRASTRUCTURES

ll Hours - 24/7 City Ha Vigorously - Fight Crime s - Clean Street enter the - Require ID to city - Lower Taxes

Existing Condition

Proposed Condition

Detroit

Hamtramck

Detroit

Hamtramck

EXCLUSIONARY TALES 120

Grosse Pointe SHOP STOP CITY

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT GROSSE POINTE | SHOP STOP CITY

ht

Eig

e Mil

ht

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Figural Section

Eight Mile gets cut off to restrict entry into the Grosse Pointe cities

Shops Outdoor Detroit

Grosse Pointe

121 INFRASTRUCTURES

Grosse Pointe

The mall turns its back to Detroit and faces inwards toward Grosse Pointe

Public

EXCLUSIONARY TALES FOR DETROIT GROSSE POINTE | SHOP STOP CITY

N

0

25

50

100 (ft.)

EXCLUSIONARY TALES 122

the ruins are the survivalists of Detroit, the loyal deserted that will reconstruct its future.

123 INFRASTRUCTURES

THE HAUNTED CITY: RUIN AS MEMORY MACHINE Brianne DuRoss

The following is the Treatise on Ruin, and the Representation, Conservation and Projection of the Ruin Memory Machines of Detroit, hereafter referred to as the Ruin Treatise of Detroit, that was presented on Monday 3 December 2013 in response to the appeal for new representations and alternative responses to issues categorized as “blight.�

The Ruin Treatise of Detroit has been reviewed and approved by the Detroit City Council and will be forwarded to the Taubman Reviewers of Architecture on 16 December 2013 for further consideration.

The Ruin Treatise of Detroit was prepared by a project team from the Baseline Studio Consultants, headed by Brianne DuRoss.

RUIN CITY 124

A TREATISE on

A TREATISE

RUIN; on RUIN; and the and the

REPRESENTATION, PROJECTION, AND CONSERVATION REPRESENTATION, CONSERVATION, AND PROJECTION

of the of the

RUIN MEMORY MACHINES OF DETROIT RUIN MEMORY MACHINES OF DETROIT

BY BRIANNE DuROSS

125 INFRASTRUCTURES

Intro: The Totality of Detroit’s Industrial Ruins

Grand Trunk Railroad Grand Trunk Railroad

64% Active Industrial

7145 Acres

38% Unused and Vacant Industrial

4595 Acres

4595 acres

Detroit’s Industrial Corridors were once the linear cities of its workforce. Production and small manufacturing supplied the auto factories along the rail, creating a linear network while providing jobs for the adjacent residential areas. This linear assembly line mimicked the similar small scale assemblies within the factories themselves, creating a complex network with implications reaching far outside of the Grand Trunk Railroad of Detroit.

As production in Detroit shifted and the linear industrial cities faced economic hardship, Detroit began to de-industrialize especially along these corridors as the rail became obsolete. The residential areas directly adjacent to these industrial zones were left with large abandoned structures and vacant sites along its edges, causing aberrant conditions, industrial waste dumps, and unusable land.

Today these vacancies are evident especially south of the 8 Mile borderline, as many of these industrial zones continue to be vacated, and the ruins left behind impose on the residential areas.

RUIN CITY 126

Part I: Representation of Ruin Authentic versus Restored THE AUTHENTIC

THE RESTORED

Do not let us deceive ourselves in this important manner; it is impossible, as impossible to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.

To restore a building is not to repair it, nor to do maintenance or to rebuild, it is to reestablish it in an ultimate state that never existed before.

John Ruskin, 1849 THE RUIN

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, 1855

THE MONUMENT 001.

Ancient Roman city of Dougga.

Ruins from 150 A.D. 002.

The Parthenon, in Rome, Italy

The authentic serves to keep ruin within its state of decay. It argues that preservation is damaging, as it strips the architecture of its history, and erases the importance of its program, form, and context within its site. The authenticity of the ruin is preserved by allowing it to decay in its natural state.

The restored serves to re-establish the ruin to its original state, and acknowledge the ruin’s past programs. It focuses on the historical content of the ruin, and highlights it as a way of remembering its past histories. This restoration often is associated with the ruins’ transformation into monument.

“RUIN PORN”

“EMPTY SHELLS” 003.

Photograph of the William Livingston House before its demolition. Designed by Albert Kahn, it has become a popular image of Detroit ruin 004.

Aerial View of Detroit’s “empty shells”: buildings preserved, often remodeled and stripped of their original historical context

So-called “ruin porn” fetishizes this authenticity.

Visitors seek to capture the perfect image, framing it in a perspective which erases any surrounding context. These photographs often void of life, continuously represent only the ruin’s state of decay.

This phenomenon--while bringing attention to ruin-often fails to acknowledge the ruin’s memory, and the history attached to its existence, which is important in understanding its progression to its current state.

127 INFRASTRUCTURES

Preservation and restoration often create “empty shells.” These empty shells are the result of the rapid decay of modern materials. As the ruin is continuously remodeled in order to meet modern programs, it becomes a shell of what it once was. These shells as a result, no longer hold any ties to the original ruin, and fail to represent the layered memories and histories tied to the importance of the ruin. This becomes an erasure rather than a preservation.

Part II: New Representation of Ruin Mask, Conserve, Project

005.

Axons describing the envelope of the frame surrounding the ruin as both mask, and new possible program 006.

Perspectives through an alley of the present Packard Factory, and the decay of its form over time

The ruin, because of its recent memories associated with its site, is often seen as blight, which must be utilized or replaced in order to use the otherwise wasted site.

The frame serves as a mask, both to allow for the ruin’s natural decay, as well as to shield the neighboring residential areas from the ruin itself.

The frame protects a specific past, while projecting new futures for Detroit as it eventually replaces the ruin over time. The void within the frame created by the ruin begins to hold new programs, and the frame itself begins to house new activities. This replacement of the ruin creates and projects new futures for Detroit once the ruins are gone, and stands as a monument to its past as they remain upon the sites of the industrial ruin. Because of the void left by the ruin, its imprint is forever visible through the frame structure.

The perspectives from the industrial ruin progress over time, and begin to provide new futures as the landscape is cleared of the industrial waste from the unused factories. This landscape begins to frame views across the industrial corridors, and creates connections to the singular industrial sites as the frames expand and stretch along the linear rail line. These connections introduce new possible futures for the frame’s program.

RUIN CITY 128

Part III: Isolation of Ruin Detroit’s Industrial Sites

The isolation of ruins reinforces their presence, but also creates potential in the spaces between them.

007.

Site plan of the abandoned industrial buildings along the Grand Trunk Railroad, and the masks which envelope them

Pierre Vittorio Aureli

008.

Perspective of the Grand Trunk Industrial Corridor from 8 mile Road

The abandoned industrial sites along the Grand Trunk Railroad symbolize Detroit’s past linear city of production. By isolating the sites of ruin, new potentials created by the frames and their relationships along the rail can be envisioned and projected as utopias for Detroit’s future city.

The isolation of these ruins create an endless landscape of opportunity, as views of the frames begin to connect along the rail line, and relationships begin to be forged through proximities and perspectives. Over time, these frames become occupied, the grid is filled, and densities are intensified when the frames envelope each other.

Once the ruin has become rubble, the frames are left along the rail, providing a memory of the past industrial corridor, and creating monumental and memorial forms.

As this linear path is traveled, the frames begin to overlap, and create a significant connection and experience to each other, highlighting what “once was.”

129 INFRASTRUCTURES

Part IV: Progression of Ruin Decay

009.

The Cycle of Decay, from the Ruin to the new program of the frame, acts as a continuous process 010.

Axonometrics of the Ruin as it decays over time

The frame becomes occupied and used as it continues to decay within the structural frame.

Architecture without program, to be conquered programmatically by a future civilization that deserves it.

Kazimir Malevich

The progression cycle presents the ruin as a continuous process of decay. The frame neither preserves its state, nor expedites its ruin process, but instead allows for the natural process to take place, the frame itself is preserved. This represents the ruin as an impermanent memory, while the frame acts as the future projection of the city that has not yet fallen into ruin. The frame instead, begins the process of rebuilding new programs, eventually containing a void open to the needs of the future users. It therefore neither dictates program, nor leaves the site without context, since it grows from the site of the past ruin.

Over time, the scenography of the ruin begins to project memories and images of the events that impacted Detroit’s industrial corridors, introducing new programs to the frame as it is continuously occupied during the process of decay.

Over time the ruin decomposes, exposing its interior to the scenography of the frame, and the occupants.

Once the frame becomes rubble, the void left by the ruin can be cleared, programmed and inhabited.

RUIN CITY 130

Part V: Projection of Ruin Life Within the Frame

011.

Section views of the Industrial building as it decays within the frame, and begins to hold new programs. The Scenography of the ruin becomes important towards projecting possible futures as represented by the spotlighting

present state

10 years later

25 years later

131 INFRASTRUCTURES

Part VI: Scenography of Ruin Ruin as Memory Machine

012.

The final projection of the Ruin becomes the void that it leaves behind.

The frame which surrounds the ruin, and the void created by the past form of the ruin, utilize the spotlighting and structure as means to create new programs. These may involve exhibits, performance, and projections of the memories of Detroit, which are tie d to its industrial past, and its slow fall into de-industrialization. These voids left by the ruins haunt the city with its past memories, while projecting new possible futures from its industrial failures. The ruin then becomes a Memory Machine, one which projects these overlapping memories to create an aura of what was once there.

RUIN CITY 132

enclaves are an inevitable consequence of sprawl; embracing exclusion is a way to imagine the future of the city.

abandoned and vacant, we are shrinking‌ into new cities: islands of hope.

destruction as a process for a new pedagogy of education invites opportunity for a new learning model where students can pursue advanced vocational skills and college prospects.

architecture dances with the city as we dance with our own shadows.

8MILE BASELINE MANIFESTO

production from destruction.

the ruins are the survivalists of Detroit, the loyal deserted that will reconstruct its future.

#我买故我在 #i shop therefore i am

intervention does not only entail erasure of the derelict, the ugly, the dirt... it can selectively edit, producing new modes of interaction-sometimes uncomfortable ones.

commercialization, namely the activity of shopping, has become the last form of a truly public activity. it has infiltrated or replaced traditional communal activity centers such as churches, museums, town centers, train stations, airports, hospitals, and universities. we interact with others by spending money.

critical questioning is a learned skill crucial in enacting social change.

1

THEME