Detroit

http://tomgoodall.wordpress.com/

detroit.pdf

In a capitalist society, growth is good and shrinkage is bad.  Though, the life of a city does not fit within this paradigm.  It includes not only expansion, but also shrinkage.  In fact, cities are not shrinking; It is their population. Land area remains the same.  Infrastructure has not changed.  Vacancy and abandonment become the differential.  Because the urban space of Detroit has lain fallow for so long, its traditional ‘urban impulse’ - its density production-oriented fabric - has weakened and its ecological system has adapted.  Wetlands are developing.  Ringed neck pheasants have moved in.  As a result, Detroit is a comprehensive landscape and urban hybrid.  This ‘hybrid Detroit’ is the residue of a shrinking population and continued disinvestment.  The residue itself - the ‘gap,’ the vacancy, the abandonment - has become the space of social, cultural, and environmental actions, interactions, and reactions.  What is seen as void of culture is actually culturally rich.

Through time, neglect, and abandonment, the space of speculative development - the urban single family home - has been revealed as a possible alternative urban public space that is different than the riverfront park or the central square.  FireBreak, a series of guerrilla insertions,  seeks to investigate ‘shrinking’ and ‘decay’ not as pathological conditions that require reversal, but on their potential as strategies for development.

The Sound House

The inside of the burned house on 1993 Superior Street was filled with musicians from the local neighborhood. Event visitors were able to listen to the house from the outside, but were unable to clearly view into the interior.  Fabric was hung in all of the openings. The Sound House event included a neighborhood picnic located “2 doors down” adjacent to the house.

House Wrap

The entire exterior of a burned house on the west side of Detroit was wrapped in 8,070 lineal feet of clear plastic—body bag. The event of wrapping the house was a collaboration between the Design Center and the Woodbridge Community Development Organization. It marked the dedication of new affordable housing on the site by the development organization.

Hay House

The east side within the city limits of Detroit has become noted for its attempt to fill in the vacant land with agricultural crops. For example; alfalfa has been planted due to its ability to detoxify the contaminated soil. Detroit residents have transformed old “crack houses” into “hay houses” (bundles of hay are stored inside of these houses). Before the Hay House event 3,000 miniature bundles of hay were made by the Design Center and neighborhood participants. Three Thousand nails were evenly space on all exterior faces of the house. The event consisted of 100 surrounding residents ritualistically placing the hay on the house.

House Paint

This installation also occurs in the same Heidelberg Project as HousePrint. Every inch of one of these houses was painted white. In the evening, movies were projected on the side of the house. These weekly events were open to everyone and free of charge.

The HouseWare Box

A burned house on the west side of Detroit was surveyed and a grid of stakes were placed throughout the site from property line to property line. The grid included both the interior and exterior of the house. At each point on the grid a specimen was catalogued (location, description, height above/below ground line) and collected into vials (1/4” cylinder x 2.5” in height). The vials were placed in a box made from the wood of the burned house. The box was sized in proportion of the property lines. The vials were place in the box corresponding to their location on the site. The house was demolished by the Woodbridge Community Development Organization and a new house is being built. The HouseWare Box will be given to the new owner by the community organization—like a cake is given when someone new moves into the neighbourhood.

The Heidelberg Project 

In Detroit’s Lower East Side there exists the Heidelberg Project, the vision of artist Tyree Guyton. It is a large urban installation using several abandoned houses and their adjacent land. One of the houses was covered in liquid latex. After the latex dried, it was removed. The latex took with it the imprint of the house—Urban Shroud. This latex was shipped to Volterra, Italy for an urban installation. This same latex was exhibited in the ArchiLab 2004 exhibition.