One month ago, two of our employees trekked 24 travel hours across the globe to Hefei, China. Upon arrival, HAA commenced an innovative cross-cultural, cross-professional exchange. For the next two weeks, these employees will be working directly for the Hefei University of Technology within their architecture/design department. During this time, they will be posting illustrative photos that speak to Design, China, and all of the discovered Details. Continue reading
lecturesHAA is dedicated to creating a broader creative discourse through open and collaborative dialogue. The program includes lectures and discussions throughout the year that will consider important contemporary design issues associated with the urban environment.
The initial program for 2009 will be “Challenging Detroit: (Re)generating Urbanism.” This program will provide an important platform for consideration of innovative, multidisciplinary strategies designed to help the city not only create reinvestment and redevelopment, but also begin to regenerate the social, economic and environmental attributes that define it. Now, more than ever, we need to come together to understand how we can effectively participate in the thoughtful, creative regeneration of Detroit.
While it is relatively unconventional for a professional design firm such as Hamilton Anderson Associates to create and coordinate a lecture program such as this, we feel that by leveraging our resources and interests in design, we may more fully establish a fertile exchange of ideas that helps to bridge the gap between the creative community and the community at-large.
The public is encouraged to attend these free events. Please return to rogueHAA for future dates and topics.
EVENT 04: CRAIG WILKINS :
Dr. Craig L. Wilkins has worked nationally and internationally as a designer, project architect and urban designer. He currently serves as the director of the Detroit Community Design Center at the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Dr. Wilkins has written and lectured widely on a variety of topics, from hip hop architecture to the prospects of globalization on African spaces. Dr. Wilkins’s work has culminated in his most recent publication, “The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on race, space, architecture and music” which has been recognized with numerous awards, including the prestigious 2008 Montaigne Medal for Best New Writing. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, two of our employees trekked 24 travel hours across the globe to Hefei, China. Upon arrival, HAA commenced an innovative cross-cultural, cross-professional exchange. For the next four months, these employees will be working directly for the Hefei University of Technology within their architecture/design department. During this time, they will be posting illustrative photos that speak to Design, China, and all of the discovered Details. Continue reading
BACK TO THE FUTURE. Last month the Taubman School of Architecture hosted the ambitiously titled Future of Design Conference, bringing together a prestigious group of design professionals to present their thoughts and work on the conference topic. Based on the Pecha Kucha format, each individual was given fifteen minutes to present a rapid-fire succession of projects, speculations, and research, and diatribe. While certain thematic similarities surfaced throughout the course of the presentations, by and large the variety of presented topics reflected the current diversity of the design field. One consistent topic, however, centered on the ways technology is changing the means and methods of architectural production. To contextualize this theme, it is interesting to trace the evolution of technology as it relates to avant-garde architecture and design practices.
Historically, “visionary architecture” has existed as work which is often highly polemic and rarely built. In his book Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination, Neil Spiller writes that “this history is linked to the metaphorphosis of the ‘machine’ and the technologies that embody it. Whether ‘machines’ are the conceptual ones of Marchel Duchamp, the mechanized armatures of cranes on a building site, the virtual machines within computers or the cabbalistic machines of Daniel Liebskind, they have all influenced the course of architectural vision.” Works such as, Constant’s New Babylon (1950), Archigram’s Walking City (1964), Superstudio’s Continuous Monument (1971), or even Buckminster Fuller’s proposed Dome for Manhattan (1960), functioned not as serious proposals for built work, but as devices for questioning certain social, political, and technological issues. Continue reading
“Desire is the very essence of man.” This quote by 17th century philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, opened Lars Gräbner’s lecture this past October 13th at the Johanson Charles Gallery. As principal architect of VolumeOne Architects and full time faculty member at the University of Michigan’s College of Architecture, Lars has traveled extensively throughout the world. Most recently, his architecture studio spent the summer in Europe, touring successful post-industrial regions and composing a ‘generic urban strategies menu’. His lecture titled, “The City of Desire”, offered a tantalizing prospect. As these projects have already succeeded in regenerating post-industrial cities, can these same urban strategies apply to Detroit? Can Detroit become a “City of Desire”?
Suburban Destiny. To fully address these questions, Lars outlined one of the fundamental conflicting desires of modern man – to live in the city or to live in the suburbs. As Lars stated in his lecture, the desire to leave the city is strong, originated by decades of aggressive marketing campaigns. Continue reading
pro bono publico – for the public good or well being, and more commonly understood in the world of professional services as ‘free’.
DEFINING PRO BONO. We all understand disparities in wealth and access to professional services. To some, these disparities compel a moral imperative to provide professional services to under-served communities. Many architects regularly perform pro bono services for a variety of ends. While certain firms focus on needs of the international community, such as Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and his disaster relief housing for Japan, Turkey, and India, others focus on issues specific to the United States. Auburn University’s Rural Studio has been designing and building housing and civic buildings in rural Alabama since 1993, while Yale University has an even longer tradition of volunteering their design/build services to their local community. While globalization has increased the reach and scope of the architect, it has also brought to the forefront the major issues that plague our societies. A great need exists globally and locally, and architects are more capable than ever to affect change. Continue reading
HOUSE NO. 1. I step out of my car and glance at the address listed on my clip board. I then compare that number to the faded house number adjacent to the front door. It’s a match. My partner and I glance at the neighborhood and quickly assess our surroundings. We traverse the short front walk, step up the slightly deteriorating stoop, and ring the doorbell. It doesn’t work. I tap my clipboard hard against the locked storm door. I stand square with the front door, my Detroit Housing Commission badge daggling from my shirt pocket. Like standing before a metal detector at the airport, I allow a stranger to scrutinize my intensions. I give ample time for them to complete their security check through the peephole. As I stand there, my mind wanders. What will I find on the other side of the door?
REHABILITATING DETROIT. In 2009, the federal government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It was enacted as an economic stimulus package and immediately pumped $12.7 billion towards the modernization of the nation’s public housing. New leadership at the Detroit Housing Commission (DHC) has earmarked $8 million toward breathing new life into a scattered sites housing program that has proven national success. Through this capital outlay, the DHC is continuing its mission to provide quality housing for all Detroiters. Hamilton Anderson Associates is one of four teams of architects asked to take this journey of rehabilitation with the DHC. Our specific task is to assess the physical condition of 80 homes, but as our work continues, we realize our assessments are also about restoring the human condition. Continue reading