Graduate students at the University of Michigan have designed a new permanent installation for a North Corktown property. It is owned by Jerry Esters who is in the process of turning this building into a live/work space for an artist or entrepreneur. The building at one time had a glass facade where you see metal now, but that had been replaced by concrete block when the students first saw it. Wanting to make the place more open without inviting someone to break in, they came up with this metal work to create beauty and openness while still keeping the place secure. Student Justin Mast says, "Detroit is an interesting place to think about architecture. There is not a ton of new construction and there does not need to be. We are thinking about what the practice of architecture looks like after school in Detroit." We hope that means that once he and his friends graduate in Ann Arbor, they shall consider coming east. This town could use a few more facelifts and it seems like a good way for young architects to get some attention. In May 2010, another U Michigan studio project [by faculty] was picked up by Fast Company ; those students designers filled a $500 home in No Ham (Detroit just north of Hamtramck) with several installations.
This new project from the U Mich (where the official school name is the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning) was led by instructors Catie Newell and Maciej Kaczynski. If you are a local building owner looking for a student to inject some awesome onto your sad facade, here are the names to know...
Project Team: Anand Amin, Andrew Aulerich, Lauren Bebry, Ashley Goe, Tarlton Long, Justin Mast, Andrew McCarthy, Matt Nickel, Kurt Schleicher, Andrew Stern, Lauren Vasey, Ning Wang, and Brenna Williams
· Young Architects Buy Detroit Home for $500, Turn It into Design Lab [Fast Company]
· Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning[UofM]
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