The Dequindre Cut, Detroit
Michigan Undergraduate Studio
INSTRUCTOR John Comazzi
SITE Dequindre Cut, Detroit, MI
PROGRAM headquarters, nursery, and education space for the Greening of Detroit, public space for recreation areas, paths, relaxation
Running from the Eastern Market to the Detroit River, the one mile Dequindre Cut is a neglected but vital space to the City of Detroit and has the potential to initiate and merge with a larger system of greenways. This project addresses how architecture can engage and compose the temporal; it addresses the blurring distinction between nature and artifice, especially how human and artificial cycles interact, converge, and conflate natural cycles for a better understanding of the other. Working in a cross-grain motion to connect the current figures and voids, the project became a projective urbanism. It is a context sensitive yet flexible typology that can continue beyond the limits of the site, accommodating the growth and needs of the Greening of Detroit. Three main building/bridges and three land transformations were defined. This typology mixes and changes size to fit the context, growing and reshaping with time, developing and integrating across, along, and around.
DIMENSIONS 20 02.2007
