PLACE // The City of Detroit is known as the country's auto capital. Not only is the city the home of the big three, but also is critically dependent on these corporations economically, socially, and politically. The metropolitan form, the downtown core, radials, a vast network of freeways and roads reflects an attempt of auto dependent urban development. Though this sprawling urban morphology served a manufacturing industry based society in pursuit of the American Dream of suburban life, it also led to dependence on oil, increased carbon emissions, pollution, and increasing infrastructure maintenance costs. This was further complicated by a post-industrial shrinking city resulting in decreased population and erosion of a healthy tax-base. The resulting urban deterioration is evident in the numerous empty lots and vacant buildings dotting the urban landscape.

In spite of this context of crisis, we believe that there is hope. The city is still at the epicenter of a highly resourceful metropolitan region. This consists of vital natural resources (like the world's largest fresh water resource of the Great Lakes, the Detroit River, and the metro parks) as well as some of the finest human resources (diverse, entrepreneurial, and hardworking). The fundamental formal infrastructure like the radial roads and the building stock is strong. There are pockets within the city which offer hope and create opportunity through innovative partnerships among people forged everyday and on-ground an exciting form of everyday urbanism. The community we studied, the New Center, is one of such pockets in Detroit. Our community partner for this project, the New Center Council (NCC), is a nonprofit business organization dedicated to the development and management of New Center as a vibrant, diverse and economically healthy district and the northern anchor of Detroit's Greater Downtown. (NCC, 2008)

GOAL // Our intention is to create a PLACE (live/work/play environment) for a Next Generation of Detroiters, who believe in a more responsible urban life style with a desire to live a greener, healthier more meaningful life. This Next Generation would, hopefully, serve as a catalyst for raising awareness and provide motivation for residents across the city and region to become more self-aware of their lifestyle habits and foster new, positive change.

KNOWLEDGE // Education drives the concept for our green community. Our site in Detroit's historic New Center, conceived by the Fisher brothers in the 1920s as Detroit's second downtownis located at the epicenter of numerous schools, universities and educational facilities. Located just to our south is Wayne State University's main campus, which has a student population of approximately 20,000 undergraduate students. To our north the College for Creative Studies is carrying out plans to renovate and occupy the historic Argonaut Building as its secondary campus site. This building will house undergraduate programs, community outreach activities, as well as professional research activities and even its very own art and design focused middle school and high school. Also to our north is the Detroit Studio which focuses on community-based architectural and urban design projects. To our west, via Detroit's planned Ann Arbor Detroit rail link which will have its main station located at the northeastern corner of our green community, is The University of Michigan. Also located within our site are a number of other schools, such as University Prep Academy, a Detroit public exam school. Located in the center of these institutions, our green community is poised to become a living/working community of students, teachers, professors and education professionals, who will make up our community's main population and social density.

Education not only plays a role in our population and social density, but in a number of other important ways as well. By working and living on our site, our student population and other residents will be encouraged to become active participants in and students of the green community where they are not only using and contributing to urban agriculture, renewable energies, and other sustainable practices, but will also be learning about these green practices along the way, and in turn hopefully sharing their knowledge with others while raising awareness in the city/region. In this way our green community itself becomes an educational institution.

Our green community recommendations organize at three scales of intervention:

Architecture / Site
TIME // Working with Detroit's New Center Council (NCC) we spent a substantial amount of time studying the area and came to see that our study area is full of beautiful historic structures. We decided to re-use these existing structures instead of demolishing and constructing new buildings in their place, prompting the idea of embodied energy as sustainability within our green community. Many of the buildings we re-use are mixed-use structures with residential spaces on the upper floors as well as commercial and/or retail on the street level, including a fresh market, grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants and various retail shops. By providing these amenities, we hope to give the students and residents living in our green community a reason to work and consume within a mile radius, and thus less of a reason to feel compelled to use their automobiles. In addition, each new and re-used residential building is fitted with its own green/garden rooftop where residents will be able to grow their own food and tend their own gardens, which will not only provide healthy and nutritional food but also help control and recycle rainwater run-off and reduce unwanted heat gain. Each of these buildings will also take advantage of five wind turbines located on the northern edge of our green park, as well as solar panels and our community's living machine in which rainwater is collected and recycled throughout the site.

The existing study area is also covered in many areas by large, paved parking lots. In place of these hard, grey areas which create large amounts of rainwater run-off and heat gain, we have created new green structures and new green spaces.

Site / Community
PEOPLE // Located on the western side of our site was an enormous 375,000 square foot parking lot which we moved underground and replaced with an expansive green park above. We propose a deck park that will reach west across the Lodge/M-10 freeway to create a strong pedestrian connection from our site to the Virginia Park residential community on the other side for the first time, bridging the barrier and bringing the two communities together. At the very western edge of the park we propose a new community center and grocery store, located in a re-used existing structure, a new fulcrum point where both communities can come together in common activities and learn more about the green community and sustainability. Within the park itself are our community gardens, where residents can practice urban agriculture at a larger scale than their rooftop gardens, and sell their produce at the fresh market located next door, as well as water retention pools, a baseball field, and a number of green open spaces and hard surfaces for various recreational activities.

2nd Avenue, which extends north and south through our site, is transformed into our main pedestrian path through the community, connecting the New Center core to the north and Wayne State University to the south. Throughout our green community we recommend a number of other pedestrian paths and green alley networks, which connect the community's residential nodes to the commercial/retail areas and to the train station, which then connects you to the rest of the city and the region. These green alleys, which are currently in disrepair, will be transformed via permeable pavements and vegetation and, by providing improved lighting, will offer residents access to their private residences while at the same time providing quick, safe and easy access to the rest of the community's areas.

Community / City
PLACE // Detroit is perhaps the most auto-dependent city/region in North America. Being the center of the country's auto industry, and having a vast network of freeways and roads, the city of Detroit and the region at large is a prime example of sprawl. Our green community hopes to raise awareness and offer alternate lifestyle choices. Our green community is also fortunate in that it is the location for Detroit's planned Intermodal Transit Station, which will connect downtown Detroit to the northern suburbs along Woodward Ave., as well as connecting Detroit to the Metro Airport and Ann Arbor to the west, thus becoming a critical node in the region. Our green community will be the destination of many people traveling from many locations across the state and country. This train station is the key to our public transportation system. Our green community will also feature a public bike system much like the one that has proven successful in places like Montreal, Vancouver, and Portland. Users can pick up a bike from one of three locations in the community, use it to reach their destination, and then leave it for others to use. With this system in place, and in conjunction with the city's bus system and train station, we hope to lessen the need for our residents to use and depend on their automobiles, and thus making our green community a more pedestrian friendly one.

Our green community encourages and makes use of education on a number of different levels. In this day and age, sustainability and greener ways of living must work hand in hand with educational institutions and communities in order to raise the awareness and benefits of this greener, healthier and responsible way of living. Our green community does just this by not only supporting students in their educational pursuits and teaching them about green living practices, but also by providing them with alternative ways of seeing and living out their bright futures in a more green, sustainable world.

Once a pioneer of the American dream, Detroit should once again become a model for how the city can redirect the region's focus towards reinvigorating the American Dream in new and exciting ways. The ingenuity, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of metropolitan Detroit were fundamental forces in the shaping the 20th century America, educating and moving the world. We hope that the green community at the New Center provides a collective 21st century vision of where Detroit moves us next through sustainable placemaking.