The structure and circulation of this proposal are based on the economical model of highway and parking structures. A series of spiral ramps punctuate the structure, connecting all levels with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. A perennial garden and plaza extend across the roof, creating a network of spaces for recreation and social gathering. Thin buildings maximize the surface area of their facades, and in turn maximize daylighting.
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This proposal works with and within the overlapping, disaggregated connections between urban and social form. Situated above and around the Dequindre Cut, it uses a low-rise high-density development—produced through the loose arrangement of empty types, frameworks, and open spaces—to connect existing conditions with a new urban fabric. At grade, a neighborhood of common spaces links the community with the Cut and the existing street system.
These emptied typologies serve as an open framework for something else, imagined by someone else, to happen. They are owned collectively, they do not front streets, and they work outside conventional notions of property and lots. The thresholds between interior and exterior—roofs, ramps, porches, and overhangs—provide informal areas for neighbors to commune. Every exterior space is a public space; every interior space is a public space.
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Housing No. 4 A Situation Constructed from Loose and Overlapping Social and Architectural Aggregates
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Program: Housing, Work, Retail, Everything
Status: Proposal, 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
Project Team: Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample, John Yurchyk, Andrew
Frame, Mark Acciari, Phillip Denny, Jason Bond, Steve Gertner, Mathew Staudt,
Sarah Wagner, Fauzia Evanindya, Fancheng Fei, Jacob Comerci, Michaela
Friedberg, Taylor Cornelson, Laura Salazar
Additional support provided by the Columbia University Graduate School
of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and the Center for
Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure at the Princeton University School of
Architecture
Related Projects:
Book, A Situation Constructed from Loose Architectural and Social Aggregate
2016 Venice Architecture Biennale US Pavilion
Software No. 14
