Dich2otomy from HAA on Vimeo.
As part of the Detroit Design Festival presented by the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, rogueHAA has installed “Dich2otomy” an architectural installation inside Lafayette Greens Urban Garden. It will be open during the remainder of the Detroit Design Festival. (more…)
http://www.roguehaa.com/descours-2010-dich2otomy/
Over the next two weeks, a group from HAA will be participating in Descours 2010 along with 14 other design groups from around the world. The event is hosted and coordinated by the AIA New Orleans and is free and open to the public. As a way of expanding the boundaries of the installation beyond 1000 St. Charles Ave, we have established a page to host video, photos, notes, thoughts, rants, and overall documentation of the work. We will be updating throughout the process, so please check back frequently as the project unfolds. And of course, if you find yourself in the area please spend an evening touring what will be an amazing series of installations.
HAA would like to thank Detroit Tube Products, Airgas, the Digital Fab Lab at U of M, and everyone who has helped realize this project.
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For a few days last week, the small urban triangle known as Capitol Park and the surrounding area were radically transformed for the filming of Transformers 3. Piles of rubble, explosions, robots, and a new streetscape were installed as part of director Michael Bay’s elaborate set. This sort of temporary urbanism is becoming more and more common as the Michigan film incentive draws site scouts to the area. In upcoming films, Detroit will be portraying Paris, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and many other U.S. cities. In recent months residents have witnessed rallies by the ‘Peoples’ Liberation Army’, dramatic life of a retired CIA operative, even stumbled upon a rogue NYC subway station at the Guardian Building. While it is exciting to experience the instant gratification of these fleeting installations, we should not to overlook the slow but lasting progress occurring in urban spaces like Capitol Park. (more…)
Last Friday, HAA joined hundreds from around the world to celebrate Park(ing) Day, a one day event that highlights the need for more livable and vibrant public spaces in our cities. With some help from Unilock and Landscape Forms, pavers and sod where placed on a parking spot at the corner of Gratiot and Woodward. Soon, there was a green patch of space, an unusual site especially when one is accustomed to see a car in its place instead. Onlookers were curious. Drivers paused. Parking enforcement stopped, then questioned, and questioned some more, but finally drove off. This was the idea—to get people to notice, ask questions, and interact. For those that stopped by, they got the message and left with a smile on their faces.
For more information on Parking Day: http://parkingday.org/
In 2005, ReBar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single 2 hour metered parking space in downtown San Francisco into a temporary public park. The goal was to provoke an examination of the values that generate public urban space by briefly transforming territory typically reserved for vehicles. The intervention aimed to address a broader range of public needs by providing a public green space.
Today, Park(ing) Day has evolved into an annual worldwide event that empowers the community to enact urban change by creatively altering parking spots for the betterment of the public. This year, Park(ing) Day will be on Friday, September 17th. HAA will be participating in this unique project, and is in the process of selecting a location and designing the Park(ing) spot. Please check back for updates.
If you would like to create your own Park(ing) space or would like more information, please click here: http://parkingday.org/
License to Participate: http://parkingday.org/src/NPD_license_2010.pdf
Park(ing) Day network: http://my.parkingday.org/
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Artist X. As part of this blog’s ongoing mission to raise the level of design discourse, rogueHAA has created a new series of posts entitled, “Artist X”. This series will highlight local artists, showcasing unique and innovative projects found within the city. By presenting multiple creative disciplines, we hope to build community relationships, spark Detroit specific design dialogue, encourage multi-disciplinary collaboration, and ultimately, strengthen the existing Detroit creative class.
Noah Resnick currently teaches and practices in the city of Detroit, Michigan. He is a full-time professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, and a principal of uRbanDetail, a small research based architecture and urban design studio that operates under the interrelated concepts of the architectonics of multiple scales; the architect as urban collaborator; and the architect as community builder.
Noah grew up in Miami, Florida, where he attended the Design and Architecture Senior High magnet school (D.A.S.H.). He earned his BArch from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and completed his Masters of Science in Architecture Studies (SMarchS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Architecture + Urbanism stream. In addition to Detroit, Noah has lived and practiced in Chicago, Boston, and New York, as well as Berlin, Germany where he worked in the studio of Daniel Libeskind.
His professional experience in architecture and urban design ranges from the conceptual and design development of a two hundred thousand sq ft mall/ spa complex in Switzerland, to in depth urban design studies and proposals for very high profile Central Artery sites above the ‘Big Dig’ in Downtown Boston, to the full service design and construction administration of a high-end townhouse building in New York City, to the landscape design of the City Hall Plaza and nearby park in Downtown Brockton, Massachusetts. Most recently, Noah has been a founding member of the design team working to transform Roosevelt Park in Detroit through the design and implementation of a new master plan. uRbanDetail is also currently designing the 2nd location of Slows Barbecue, in Midtown. (more…)
Artist X. As part of this blog’s ongoing mission to raise the level of design discourse, rogueHAA has created a new series of posts entitled, “Artist X”. This series will highlight local artists, showcasing unique and innovative projects found within the city. By presenting multiple creative disciplines, we hope to build community relationships, spark Detroit specific design dialogue, encourage multi-disciplinary collaboration, and ultimately, strengthen the existing Detroit creative class. (more…)
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Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? – Jack Kerouac
Detroit is ironically the most and least likely place to discuss mass transit. Once the home of one of the nation’s most extensive streetcar systems (link to map), Detroit has become synonymous with decentralization, suburban expansion, and the dominance of the automobile. Where human mobility was once limited by the location of rail lines, canals, and the limited travel range of other non-motorized forms of transportation, the car provided a universal form of personal transportation which could be used at virtually any geographic scale. Unfortunately, the success of the car came at the expense of all other modes of transportation, eventually leading Detroit and other cities toward an inefficient and unsustainable transit monoculture.
Recently, infrastructural failures in this country have gained national and international attention. With increasing national imperative, as well as efforts at the regional and local level, it appears mass transit is finally becoming a reality. High-speed rail development in Florida between Tampa, Orlando and Miami, and in California linking Sacramento, San Francisco and L.A., has been covered extensively throughout the media. Portland Oregon’s streetcar system has become a benchmark for urban transit in this country. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has allocated substantial funds to the development of public transit systems, indicating a shift in support and investment toward sustainable car alternatives. As this transition occurs, however, it is important to consider not only the new forms of transportation infrastructure and technology that will be necessary, but also the relationship between these and existing development patterns. (more…)
Field observation. Amidst the cold and snow typical to our Detroit winters, the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority (DWCPA) is steadily progressing through construction. Located at the intersection of Bates and Atwater in Downtown Detroit, the DWCPA Public Dock and Terminal “is designed to not only harbor and attract cruise ships, but also any other transient vessels visiting Detroit.” Once completed, this HAA designed facility will accommodate visiting domestic and international vessels and further energize Detroit’s already successful pedestrian Riverwalk.
The expected public opening for cruise operations is tentatively scheduled for summer 2011.
Click here for “Field Observation” update, August 2009
Click here for previous post on the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority
Images courtesy of Ted Moore Jr.
