detroit winner blogs

Because of my curiosity of the winner's work-- easy to understand considering the sophistication the clips each winning proposal shows, I went on a search to find a blog or web page for each. Unfortunately, I could only find one. Fortunately, it was the first place winner's and it is wicked cool.

The first link shows the project.
http://fachwerk.wordpress.com/

The second link is his related blog.
http://archimorph.wordpress.com/

check.

rouse[d]

1st Place: Jason Pierce, Illinois
2nd Place: David Wolthers, Denmark
3rd Place: Scott Long, New York
Honorable Mention: 2A_eM design Cooperative, Wisconsin (Jessica Wilcox, Nicholas Reiter, Peter Nguyen)

[D]escription:

rouse[D] is a two part competition and exhibition. rouse[D] will focus on re-inventing the city of Detroit through the use of digital computation methodologies!

Experimental and innovative design ideas through exhibition.

This is an international open ideas competition challenging people to come up with designs that will rouse the city of Detroit and encourage an evolution of our understanding of its unique urban environment. We have studied, examined, photographed, and proposed our ideas many times over, but how can we begin to take action to improve the overall condition of what so many believe to be a modern day ruins? Every city has its history and Detroit is no different, but now it’s our turn to “bounce back” and maybe not in the traditional or conventional way, but in a new, unprecedented way that is specific to the one-of-a-kind condition Detroit presents to us. So the solution too, will be one-of-a-kind specific to our Detroit… let’s see what you’ve got…

here's what we got...

the start of something beautiful

perspective renderings. catalytic nodes. radical infrastructure. ready to go....




















images © 2Aem cooperative

diagrams

images © 2Aem cooperative

updates and more to come....

part 2: applying value

Taking the example of highway further: Perhaps the sky-ways create huge and interesting cathedral-like spaces underneath, the feet of the piles in rivers create habitats for new river life, the new boundary between the cities has given rise to 2 distinct neighborhoods that, like islands of Venice, have a new relationship with one another that a massive long street couldn't do before.

The 2nd problem of Detroit is this: How to get people to "slow down" and actually want to appreciate those experiences below, rather than traveling at 80 to go to a casino and travel back at 80 without fully exercising our sense. We can't build cities any longer for the singular economy of money, but fort the wholistic economies of place-making and human quality. Part of this philosophy is working with what we have, but not in the sense of simply accepting what's given, but accepting that there is always beauty and we need to work to find it (it is not always an outwardly given thing-- you have to work to see it); appreciating it not simply for an abstract value, but for the very real value we can give through the assessment of our real senses.

photo © cggaffer

part 1: philosophy

Part of our team's ambition in these competitions is to explore and discover without the trappings of the university and the safety of the authority of our professors what is is we find important in design. We want to develop our personal outlook and theory on urban environments. Detroit has been both challenging and helpful in this respect. people have all sorts of ideas about how to "bring back" or "bring about" the "old Detroit in a new way" or to "fix" it or otherwise condescend to the current environment or population and culture that exists and develops there now. Our views have through personal dialogue and experience begun to surface in a clear way with special consideration to this problem-- we don't want to be designers that attempt to "solve" a "problem," in fact what we want to do is approach the idea of the city environment with a completely different belief-- that what exists now is beautiful-- not that it could be beautiful "if only," but strongly and adamantly is. The eye of an architect or dreamer, however, is different than someone trained in a different pursuit. It is our job, then, to accentuate and give a means to experience those places of legitimate beauty in order for people who may otherwise flee from what they see as degradation and change to stop, to slow down, to appreciate.

For too long, we feel, the culture of car and road has led to a new culture of speed that does not allow us to experience the most primitive and important aspect of human knowledge and the basis of architecture-- that of the senses. But lets take that example of car and road for a moment to illustrate our outlook. What we are saying is this: "So now, through choice and circumstance, there are a great deal of highways and vehicles that move things and people, that create noises, cut up neighborhoods, create new boundaries and shift views of the sky, earth and water. But you know what? There is beauty." Our job as designers is to create framework in order that people can experience that beauty. That is our challenge and work.