STUDIO AGENDA

motives | program | themes | acknowledgements

index | proofsheet | agenda | individuals | gallery

 

Why

This university project is a fictional study of an actual design opportunity, selected for the richness of context it has provided for project-based learning. This study has not been commissioned by anyone, nor was it undertaken with any particular vested interest in mind, nor is it at all constrained by realities of politics and finance. We do this as if design is not just about solving known problems, but also about discovering them; and as if all brainstorming fails when it becomes reasonable.

Where

Design is in play for the area around the Dearborn Intermodal Station on the forthcoming Detroit-Ann Arbor transit line. Although this project has already been years in the planning, stakeholders from the City of Dearborn, The Henry Ford, the Ford land holding company, the University of Michigan Dearborn, and JJR, the firm that is designing this station, all have expressed receptivity to a studio opening out issues in the architecture.

What

As described in the studio announcement, the goal is to take long view on public space amid technological change. Our project will look at shifts in transportation, environmental design, and ambient information, all through the lens of public access to civic infrastructure.

Your main studio project will be to develop a proposal for this intermodal station. Connection to The Henry Ford, arguably Michigan’s foremost cultural institution, gives this station a unique significance, and adds aspects of welcome center and exhibits to the project program. At a scale much smaller than a building, your studio project will need some focus on interaction design. Conversely a scale much larger than a building, the studio must recognize the potential for a pedestrian and recreational access corridor to connect not only the Henry Ford but also and the urban amenities of West Dearborn. A short group project will explore all this. In sum, you have an opportunity to develop a building proposal that is socially provocative, culturally connected, and technologically innovative.

Although the program, site, and scale (15,000-20000 square feet) of this project are fixed, the overall form, technology, and identity are not. Particulars of materials and energy, access routes, exhibit installations, and experience design all need study. Individual projects may choose to emphasize some of these more than others. Again, your challenge is to take a position on public space amid technological change.

Who

This is the work of graduate students in architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the University of Michigan. The studio (and this website) has been organized by Malcolm McCullough, the professor, who has taught architecture and urban design at Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvard. Background information has been furnished by JJR, of Ann Arbor, designers of the Dearborn Intermodal station. Receptivity to our inquiries has been shown by just about everyone we encountered. But again, this was our idea and not theirs, and our projects do not imply any endorsement or actual plan.

How

Project-based education has become much more prominent in universities, and architecture is the field that has been at it longest. Our process involves very time-intensive creative work, with mainly solo projects done in parallel with some team projects. This approach teaches our students how to get up in front of people with a proposal that takes many big-picture patterns into account. Most other fields teach how to hide behind the hardest possible numbers, no matter what measurements have been omitted to allow such certainty.

When

Work shown here was developed over about 12 weeks of the fall semester 2008.