COLLECTIVES
GRADUATE STUDIO
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN2G2/3G5 - ARCH 562 - WINTER 2024COORDINATOR
Sharon HaarPROFESSORS
Sharon Haar + Adam Smith, Lars Gräbner + Christina Hansen, Craig Borum + Claudia Wigger, Jonathan Rule, Laura Marie Peterson, Kit McCullough, Gariel Cuéllar
COLLECTIVES: How do we live together?
Within the discipline of architecture, the house has been the primary vehicle through which architects have explored formal innovation. Housing too is a project of architecture, but it is also a project of urbanism. It is where the space of the city meets the procedures and protocols produced by economics, politics, culture, race, and gender. Its fundamental question is: “How do we live together?” Housing exists in the blurry boundary between the domestic and collective. It is defined equally by universals such as the need for shelter, specifics such as location, and subjective decisions such as the desired degree of privacy or control over space and property. Housing is also a typology, but there is no agreement about its schema: density, shape or height, access and/or orientation, numbers or population housed, governance or finance models, etc.
As a studio, “Collectives” posits that there is no such thing as a house without housing. In the twenty-first century, our dwellings are spaces of negotiation, not just among individuals living together, be they families, collectives of families, or collectives of individuals who live together by choice, but also within larger publics both physical and virtual. Housing defines degrees of sociality and—in how we design and build it—says who we are as a society.
PROJECTS
Marianna Godfrey, Yingqui Cui
Fan Bai, Ying Wang
Upzone+
With a growing population of 123,000, including some of University of Michigan’s student body, Ann Arbor is often cited as the best place to live in the state; it is also one of the least affordable. Rising housing prices; decreased racial, ethnic, and income diversity; a downtown housing market catering to students and loft-like living; and suburban sprawl threaten the city’s progressive image and commitment to addressing climate change. The well-known image of the city–a walk-able historic downtown, and tree-lined residential blocks–is countered by the reality of the car-based culture that surrounds it.
Through the seemingly mundane vehicle of zoning, A2 can create an urbanism built around new forms of community to dense mixed neighborhoods, shared resources, and collective life within enhanced and diverse transportation corridors. Working with the recently passed Transit Corridor Zoning as it applies to several blocks along West Stadium Boulevard, Upzone+ will address three critical issues for Ann Arbor and similar communities: the need for affordable/attainable and equitable housing, changing demographics and evolving family and household formations, and the restructuring of domestic economics and transit to combat climate change. The studio will consider housing typologies to overcome the current segmentation of housing options based on age, income, and household structure; construction methods and materials (e.g. timber) to reduce the carbon footprint of new buildings; and programming that delivers a greater mix of neighborhood amenities.
STUDENTS
Marianna Godfrey, Yingqui Cui
PROFESSORS
Sharon Haar + Adam Smith
Today's individuals face immense pressure to manage social media, work, and personal life, leading to stress and isolation. This collective studio project emphasizes community interaction by incorporating shared spaces. Inspired by the Kraftwerk project in Zurich, there are three levels of shared areas: an exterior gathering space for recreation, collaborative environments like co-working areas and cafe, and cluster units with shared kitchens and living rooms to encourage conversation and shared responsibility between neighbors. For privacy, residents have individual bedrooms and bathrooms that suit their needs. The building promotes sustainability with natural light, ventilation, and materials like Mass Timber, aiming to create a supportive environment that encourages a shared lifestyle.
STUDENTS
Fan Bai, Ying Wang
PROFESSOR
Sharon Haar + Adam Smith
This collective project revives the tradition of staircases as communal spaces, countering the dominance of elevators. The project introduces three circulation systems: semi-outdoor corridors connecting the building, collective staircases fostering social interaction, and private unit stairs ensuring vertical connectivity. It features diverse living units, including dormitories, multi-level apartments, and single-bedroom homes, catering to various residents. The ground floor hosts commercial spaces and a private courtyard, enhancing urban engagement. Through shared amenities like collective kitchens and seating areas, the design creates a seamless transition from city life to home, encouraging interaction, gathering, and a sense of belonging.
PROJECTS
Leah Kirssin, Nishitha Jain, Jaydipkumar Nakrani
Orli Schwartz, Larissa McCoy, Ray Richardson
Making Space, Living Space, Leaving Space
The studio emphasizes the significance of the connection between ‘housing’ and ‘dwelling’ in its urban context - the SECOND AVENUE GREENWAY in Detroit.
The studio focused on the sensitivity towards dwelling in the city – and how urban, architectural and landscape design can contribute to interactive, participatory and supportive living conditions for all.
We were inspired by Herman Hertzberger's approach to housing:
“Architects should not merely demonstrate what is possible, they should also and especially indicate the possibilities that are inherent in the design and within everyone’s reach. It is the utmost importance to realize that there is a lot to be learned from how occupants respond individually to the suggestions contained in the design."
We explored issues such as domesticity and different forms of living, from the unit scale to the neighborhood scale.
The studio collaborated with major stakeholders along the Greenway, such as DTE Energy, Bedrock, SmithGroup, and the Detroit Planning and Development Department (PDD). Their representatives participated in conversations and contributed to reviews throughout the semester.
STUDENTS
Leah Kirssin, Nishitha Jain, Jaydipkumar Nakrani
PROFESSORS
Lars Gräbner + Christina Hansen
In the heart of the city, our project is designed as a safe haven where healing and connection come first. It blends housing with a strong community spirit, built on empathy and support. Connected with the Avalon Healing Center, it offers help and refuge for survivors, women, and children who need a fresh start. The project aims to create an environment where people from different backgrounds can come together, share their experiences, and support one another. It’s more than just a place to live—it’s a space that fosters hope, recovery, and a sense of belonging. Welcome home.
STUDENTS
Orli Schwartz, Larissa McCoy, Ray Richardson
PROFESSOR
Lars Gräbner + Christina Hansen
Built around a disused historic public lighting substation, Illume increases medium-density housing at a critical intersection along the newly proposed Second Avenue Greenway acting as a stepping stone to create a more robust pedestrian connection between Corktown and Downtown Detroit. The adaptive reuse of the
substation into a market and food hall anchors activity on the site, providing access to food in an area without reliable public transit or walkable access to grocery stores. Three apartment blocks are arranged to form a collective back-front yard with community centered spaces facing inward on the first level, providing protection from the persistent traffic of Michigan Avenue. The design of the interlocking units is based on a single-loaded skip-stop corridor configuration that helps to concentrate casual interactions between residents and allows for shared outdoor balcony space.
PROJECTS
Vanessa Lekaj, Patrick Wilton, Stephanie Dutan
Meghan McGrath, Minyoung Lee, Julia Bohlen
Untamed Dwelling
In the Untamed Dwelling, the studio's interest was in understanding housing as both an interior condition reflecting the life of the inhabitant as well as an exterior condition reflecting the values of the community, surrounding landscapes and urban wildlife. While the dwelling- the place where people live- creates a division between a controllable world inside and an uncertain world outside, dwelling-the phenomenon- takes place on both sides of this line of separation. Dwelling is implicitly contained in a social context, in a human society. The relationships between dwelling and other social activities are significantly linked to culture, local weather conditions, patterns of social behavior, traditions and economic interest. As an extension of this position we challenged the common western terms defining how and where people dwell: living room, bedroom, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, in favor of a more relational matrix of use and character, we attempted to rethink the boundary of the traditional dwelling to pursue a functional interaction between the dweller, the immediate physical context of a building, and the broader urban and landscape environments.
The studio worked in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood of Detroit to develop high-dense, mid-rise housing proposals. We sought to understand landscape not only as an essential extension of the dwelling for human well-being but also as an element that needs to be actively designed to provide habitat for wildlife while addressing environmental concerns such as the urban heat island effect and storm water mitigation.
STUDENTS
Vanessa Lekaj, Patrick Wilton, Stephanie Dutan
PROFESSORS
Craig Borum + Claudia Wigger
This project uses density gradation as a guide towards interspecies coexistence, maintaining and celebrating the urban wilding and temporal qualities of a three-block assemblage in Jefferson Chalmers, Detroit, MI. Housing grades from high-to-low density typologies across five corridors oriented to respect existing pockets of dense foliage. A seven-story tower denotes each housing corridor's entry, leading to rowed townhomes, followed by elevated single-family homes and cabins that minimize ground contact in a central 'reclaimed wetlands.' Here, Detroit's former 'Grand Marais' is reintroduced, fostering ecologically cogniscient dwelling. A network of hardscapes and softscapes stitches together housing corridors and adjacent blocks by leveraging foliage for the seasonal reshaping of desire lines.
STUDENTS
Meghan McGrath, Minyoung Lee, Julia Bohlen
PROFESSORS
Craig Borum + Claudia Wigger
Rooted is a coliving project that encourages interaction, connection, and sharing, both with humans and with the surrounding biodiversity. Through strategic reforesting techniques, a feeling of "living within the forest" is created within the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood in Detroit.
The project establishes a gradient of high-density microforests along Jefferson Avenue to high-density housing further into the neighborhood. Urban farming is a key component of the landscape, as are variations in forest types and public spaces. The site builds upon the productive landscape with a "one mile restaurant" - community gardens and greenhouses sprinkled throughout create an additional economy and support the restaurant along Jefferson Ave.