Research, creative practice and student work that enables a system or its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event(s) and/or ongoing climate related changes in a manner that ensures the preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential basic structures and functions.
CATEGORY TAG
EXTREME EVENTS
AN ARCHITECTURE OF MANAGED RETREAT
2022 - Present
Jono Sturt
Steven Mankouche
This body of research addresses shoreline encroachment and its implications for architecture when building in coastal conditions.
In any coastal environment, shorelands experience risks from both the immediate impacts of storms (such as inundation events and aggressive erosion) as well as from the longer-term effects of rising sea levels and encroaching shorelines. This research investigates how architecture might be designed and built with the assumption that it will one day need to move—whether elevating temporarily, retreating on site, or accommodating relocation to another location entirely.
To respond to these concerns, four case study houses were designed on four different sites—these sites vary in size, soil conditions, and grades, and were selected to investigate a wide range of climatic challenges along the Great Lakes coasts of Michigan. While the house designs are specific, each building system is sufficiently flexible to maintain the unique architectural identity of existing communities by dep loying regionally available construction practices.
EXTREME EVENTS
Curricular connections
ISLAND ALLIANCE
STUDENT
Anthony Hernandez
From rising sea levels to increasingly severe weather patterns, islands are disproportionately vulnerable to natural disasters. The economies, livelihoods, and cultures of these islands are under existential threat. As oceans heat up, hurricanes are predicted to gain more power, reaching wind speeds of up to 200 miles per hour plus. The Maldives, for example—are at risk of becoming completely flooded by 2100. My proposition is to unify all islands through an environmental alliance. The major assets of this alliance would take the form of mobile rigs that could be deployed throughout the globe to provide humanitarian and environmental assistance during natural disasters. In response to any energy, hospital, or housing dilemma, these mobile operating centers enable the alliance to flexibly respond to multiple crises.
OF THE ETERNAL AND THE EPHEMERAL
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
672 - FALL 2024
Lars Gräbner
The studio aims to explore the phenomenon of time in Architecture. The process of building, like the decay of what has been built, represents an intermediate state, the “no longer” and the “not yet”. This provisional nature refers to a transitional state and the expression of time - whether intentionally or unintentionally.
The paradox of using the forces of nature to delineate an existing thing against the transience of everything natural, challenges architecture to examine its relationship to nature.
From the picturesque as ruin and the grotesque as ornament, we investigated the contradictions of the architectural and artistic concept of nature.
The phenomenon of time has fascinated architects and artists since romanticism and has characterized our culture in multiple facets. We cannot defy time, but we can express it, utilize it, take advantage of it, politicize it, challenge it, or embrace it.
We studied works from Piranesi to the Antivilla and developed individual propositions related to time.
Topics ranged from the virtual and philosophical topics of the changing interpretations of the ‘myth’ and ‘memory’, cultural approaches towards monuments and cultural artefacts, to current concerns such as solutions for new concepts in the light of global climate change and economic threats.
ARCH
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
INTEGRATING NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS INTO A STORMWATER STRATEGY FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN
2024-2025
María Arquero de Alarcón
Geoffrey Thün
Glen Daigger, Curt Wolf, Peter Adraiens, Carol Miller, Lara Treemore Speares, Dana Infante, Justin Miller
Student research assistants: Md Ehsan Alam, Chengdai Yang, Richard Hua, Gustav Rhode, Nabilla Maharani
Kathy Velikov
This project investigates collaborative approaches to implementing large Naturebased Solutions (NbS) over gray infrastructure to address flooding mitigation and steward regional biodiversity, recreational opportunities, and community wellbeing in Southeast Michigan. The project integrates a suite of tools, including financial assessments, complex infrastructure modeling, mapping, visualization, regional transect studies, and wildlife habitat assessment. It develops a datainformed method for NbS siting assessment, prototypical NbS approaches (stream daylighting, wetland creation, and riparian buffers), and co-production tools.
Part of a two-year planning grant sponsored by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Coastal Resilience Fund, the initiative includes a robust multi-stakeholder engagement across the Clinton, Detroit, and Rouge River Watersheds, within the Great Lakes Water Authority service area. The project is co-led by a multidisciplinary team from the University of Michigan College of Engineering and Taubman College, Wayne State University’s Healthy Urban Waters Program, Michigan State University, and the environmental engineering firm LimnoTech Inc.
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
Curricular connections
WATER MEMORIES
STUDENTS
Deepa Bansal, Jay Nakrani, Yi Min Tan
Nestled along the sacred banks of the river Tamirabarani, Water Memories is a tribute to the deep connection between water, people, and nature. The interpretative and interactive components are designed to celebrate the river’s cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance, bringing its presence back into everyday life. Through thoughtfully crafted landscapes, these create spaces for reflection and interaction while adapting to the river’s natural rhythms with sustainable, locally sourced materials. More than just a design, this project honors water as a living entity— one that nurtures, sustains, and connects all beings, inviting everyone to pause, appreciate, and cherish its timeless flow.
THE RIVER WHISPERS OFBIRDS, TREES, TEMPLES, AND THEIR PEOPLE
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
ARCH 672 + UD 732
María Arquero de Alarcón
Nurtured by the perennial waters of the Tamiraparani River, the Tirunelveli District is a continental migratory bird corridor and a nesting colony for local aquatic birds. Every year, the bountiful monsoon redraws the fertile Tamiraparani riverbanks, with the historic temples and the sacred rituals as the memory markers of a landscape always in shift. This riverine ecosystem is also home to an endless constellation of small towns and villages that have historically cultivated and worshiped land and water and the many forms of life they sustain. Recognizing the distinctive socio-ecological values of these natural and cultural landscapes, the Thiruppudaimarudur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR), was created in 2005. As we approach its 20th anniversary, what can we learn about the impact of this designation to steward the natural and cultural heritage in these living landscapes?
This joint MArch+MUD studio section collaborated with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a nonprofit organization committed to environmental education and the co-production of communitybased socioecological knowledge. We traveled to the Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Centre to conduct field work with ATREE, documenting onsite conditions. Building on different aspects of ATREE’s regional socioecological work, students co-developed a series of design strategies for an interpretation and landscape observatory contributing to the ongoing investigation of a regional eco-tourism initiative.
MATERIAL PERFORMANCE / HEALTH
LIGHT FORMS Reimagination
Alli Hoag, Upali Nanda
2021 - Present
Catie Newell
Light Forms is a comprehensive glass block system aimed at creating site-specific architectural structures that utilize threedimensional forms studied for light transmission and structural performance. Able to be tessellated in various patterns, Light Forms create spaces that connect passively to the natural shifts of day and night. Sunlight and moonlight are essential to our well-being as humans, providing a critical connection to our location on the planet and to our circadian rhythms. This system prompts people to live more closely with diurnal rhythms by foregrounding passive light and darkness instead electrified and artificial interior environments. The accumulations of glass hold powerful, awe-inspiring light and spatial characteristics, in addition to performing well in compression and reducing the need for numerous materials within the envelope. Still further, when strategically assembled, it is 100% reusable and recyclable. The shifting qualities of light and dark in the natural environment will prismatically transmit within architectural spaces built using Light Forms, encouraging one’s embodied experience to connect with the present moment and the natural environment they exist within, encouraging environmental stewardship and care.
This project is supported by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society Fellowship (BGSU), Glanz Family Collaborative Research Award (BGSU), Taubman School of Architecture Seed Funding (UM), UMOR Research Catalyst and Innovation Award (UM), Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration, ARIA (UM), Bowling Green Glass Studio (BGSU), and Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum (UM).
RENEWABLE ENERGY
AN ENERGY AND WATER SELFSUSTAINABLE ISLAND IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Jong-Jin Kim
This project is to develop a design scheme for an energy and water self-sufficient island in the South Pacific. A solar farm was designed to produce electricity and water demanded by the households of the island. The solar farm consists of tree-like structures capped with solar PV panels. Beneath the solar panels, a waterproofing surface will garner rainwater to the roof drain placed at the top of the trunks of each solar tree, channeling water down through vertical piping. The design concept of this solar farm was drawn inspiration from natural forms of the local biome. The structure flares outward, maximizing its surface area to collect solar energy and rainwater. It then tapers into a thick, sturdy trunk that not only supports the canopy but also functions as a channel for directing rainfall. The solar farm will also serve as a sun-shaded and rain-protected community gathering space.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Curricular connections
DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS FOR BROWNFIELD RENEWABLE ENERGY
IN MICHIGAN: COMPENDIUM FOR MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, GREAT LAKES, AND ENERGY
STUDENTS
Christian Beswick, James Daye, Rebecca Griswold, Zhongyi He, Annie Lively, Jinren Yuan, Estella Zhang Qiming
In response to Michigan’s 2023 legislation mandating a 50% renewable energy portfolio by 2030 and 60% by 2035, this project explores how brownfield sites— properties with known or suspected contamination—can support the state’s clean energy transition. While public support favors siting renewable energy on such disturbed lands over farmland or forests, brownfield redevelopment faces significant barriers, including cost, grid interconnection, uncertainty in securing an energy buyer, and site selection complexity. To support the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) in launching a $10 million Brownfield Renewable Energy Pilot Program under the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, our team conducted research and analysis across four primary objectives: geospatial site suitability mapping, understanding the costs associated with brownfield renewable energy development, interconnection and off-taking power challenges, and pilot program design. This work aims not only to inform the development of the Brownfield Renewable Energy Pilot Program, but also to generate scalable models of brownfield renewable energy developments that could be replicated on other brownfields statewide, while also creating tools and identifying resources that can be used to advance brownfield renewable energy development in Michigan beyond the projects that participate in the Pilot Program.
Deep Blue DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/25483
MURP CAPSTONE
MURP CAPSTONE
URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING CAPSTONE STUDIO
URP 603 - WINTER 2025
Sarah Mills
A one-term capstone experience involving second-year students working with community-based organizations or with agencies concerned with neighborhood issues under the direction of their capstone faculty advisor. Following general introduction and orientation to the planning topic and the neighborhood, students work intensively in collaboration with neighborhood leaders and residents in improving their situation. Students use the knowledge gained from their studies to produce a plan to address a specific communityidentified need. Plans often address strengthening housing, reinforcing neighborhoods, revitalizing commercial districts, relieving transportation difficulties, dealing with contaminated sites, reinforcing industrial areas. Students may present their plan at community or agency meetings throughout the semester, with a final presentation for their faculty advisor. This course is designed to allow students to explore the professional aspects of the profession, and to gain practical training in the field.
1, https://umich.maps.arcgis.com
DECARBONIZATION
Lars Junghans
Dr. Junghans was the leading engineer on the office building project Concept 22/26 in Austria. The introduced building concept goes beyond the conventional high performance building discussion by introducing an office building without any active systems for heating, cooling and ventilation. In an intensive collaboration between the worldwide known architect Dietmar Eberle and Dr. Junghans, the building envelope was improved to a level of performance where no active systems are needed any longer. The innovative building automation is the heard of the building energy concept. It controls the natural ventilation openings based on the internal carbon dioxide concentration, temperature levels and the occupant demands.
The building is accomplished in the middle of July 2013. Data in extreme external temperature periods are illustrating that the room temperatures are in the comfort field at every weather condition. The award winning building achieved international recognition.
Completed photographs by Eduard Hueber, sourced from Baumschlager Eberle
22/26 NEXT GENERATION
2022-2025
Lars Junghans
Collaborators: Steven Schenk
Dr. Junghans collaborates with the German/Belgian architect Steven Schenk. The previously introduced 22/26 technology have been developed further and applied to other building projects. New approaches depend less on automation systems and improve human interaction and comfort. The new approaches are an outcome of extensive research work and experimental testing. Patershoek Care Home, Belgium The goal is to have an interaction between the construction material (hempcrete) and the localized ventilation system. The conventionally high-volume flow rates in a care home are reduced because of the integration hempcrete surfaces that controls the odor concentration in the rooms. Therefore, the maximal volume flow rate and therefore the energy demand is reduced.
Pannhaus, Aachen, Germany
The energy demand for heating, cooling and ventilation is reduced by introducing a new approach of natural driven air supply. A naturally driven heat recovery ventilation system provides preconditioned fresh air without using a mechanically driven fan.
Completed illustrations by Schenk.zone
BIOMASS
BECOMING BIOMASS
2022-2024
Student research assistants: Eilis Finnegan, Sophie Pacelko, Richard Hua, Emma Powers, Chengdai Yang
Ersela Kripa, Stephen Meuller
Kathy Velikov
Geoffrey Thün
Becoming Biomass is a speculative design research project that envisions a future cooperativemanaged agroforestry and biomanufacturing transformation in the Tennessee Valley region toward decarbonization and regenerative coexistence. The project deploys methods of narrative and scenario-based world building to depict a multiscalar and multi-system future for the region and its human and nonhuman constituents. It is situated in the context of justiceoriented decarbonization that involves dismantling carbonbased material economies through new organizations, collaborations, infrastructures, landscapes, and architectures. The speculative proposition is informed by research in biomaterial science, sustainable agroforestry, biogenic architectures, and a new vision for industrial architecture. Critical drawings such as actor networks, thick cartographies, notational scores, deep sections, and scroll drawings accompany narrative videos and analytical physical models. The project was commissioned by the University of Tennessee and exhibited at the Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley exhibition the Ewing Gallery in November 2024. A book publication is forthcoming.
ECOLOGICAL ASSEMBLIES
Curricular connections
FLUID MOTIONS
STUDENT
Yash Aprameya
Killing off fish and vegetation, the Huron River’s polluted waters actively prevent a thriving local ecosystem. Drawing inspiration from the resilient nature of Capoeira, the active motion of the “Jinga”, and the sport’s natural reliance on community, nature, and storytelling, a proposed fieldhouse envisions the ionization of algae-infested tides. By harnessing the power of constant motion of the dance— a constant fight and an ongoing history, Pavogen tiles allow for Capoeristas to convert their kinetic energy into a physical purification system filtering Huron River water into a pond, allowing for irrigation, offering safe drinking water, and a builtaround community center.
BIOACTIVE ENVELOPE
HYGROSCOPIC ENVELOPE:
BUILDING ENCLOSURES FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION
2024 - Present
Wes McGee
Adam Marcus, Liz Camuti, Evgueni Filipov
Tsz Yan Ng
This project explores how 3D printed (3DP) ceramic facades can enable climate adaptation and resilience by collecting, retaining, and controlling release of stormwater. It advocates a paradigm shift for the building envelope, away from the conventional “rain screen” notion that facades must repel and shed water off the building, to one that directly engages and manages water in ways that benefit broader infrastructural and ecological systems that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The research explores how modular 3DP ceramic components can absorb and delay runoff. The work operates at three interrelated scales—the micro (material), the meso (component), and the macro (aggregated assembly)— to develop an integrated understanding of how material performance and the design of modular systems can beneficially interface with buildings, landscapes, and other stormwater infrastructures.
BIOACTIVE ENVELOPE
Curricular connections
CELLULAR DYNAMISM
STUDENT
Brianna Kucharski
Through a series of investigative ACTS, “Cellular Dynamism” explores bio-based motifs and processes in dialogue with contemporary layered construction assemblies. [II] Extracts a physical layered sample from generative digital textures. [III] Uses the metabolic processes of plants as a backdrop to stage mediated experiences between light, water, and digital systems through a catalogue of bio-active figures within an interactive diorama. [IV] Builds upon the accumulated research to propose a biophilic alternative to the double-envelope typology, utilizing an interior green zone coupled with an exterior responsive-patterned ETFG cushioning system to condition the interior environment and experientially communicate environmental conditions to occupants.
WELCOME TO WESTERCHESTER: CULTURE, CLIMATE, AND THE DETAIL, EXPLORED IN 4 ACTS
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
ARCH 672 - FALL 2024
Ryan Ball
The role of architectural detailing today is often one of concealment. Have you ever noticed that we try to hide a lot of things within a wall? We don’t seem to like the messiness of all the activesystems technology that makes our buildings inhabitable. All of this hiding allows for a sleight of hand, to draw your attention away from what is really happening. However, given architects choose what to express and what to hide, detailing is highly political.
As a setting for this course, we will use the fictional (and climate fluid) American town of Westerchester as a backdrop to explore many issues linked to the embodiment of the American dream. In this context, the mis-direction detailing affords is often co-opted as a structural and political technique that underpins many of the challenges facing the US today: increasing inequality, systemic racism, climate change, housing unaffordability, among others. As architects, the act of detailing can be an effective political tool for a broader public engagement.
One of the biggest instigators is the widespread adoption of the rainscreen as the dominant construction method in the US and Northern Europe. The rainscreen requires that the aesthetics of an exterior cladding layer mask the internalized functional performance of the wall. It also has the effect of rendering its exterior homogenous, or disconnected. That is, climate can be instrumentalized as a representational ideal of performance, not necessarily responsive to context, let alone the current existential crisis. This shift to a representational materiality of architecture (and of climate), establishes a purposeful misreading, leaving an unresolved tension between these actors.
This course then, will use the detail as a site of investigation to intersect the expression of techno-performative issues of climate and building science with the formal agendas of popular culture vernaculars and futurisms.
BIOACTIVE ENVELOPE
Curricular connections
PNEUMABLOOM
STUDENTS
Archit Goyal, Daniel Merupu, Jutang Gao
This research project explores the integration of air-driven thermoplastic textile composites (TTCs) to create dynamic, sensorial spaces inspired by natural systems. The project draws from biomimicry, particularly the responsive behavior of the Mimosa pudica plant, the soothing sounds of a bamboo forest, and the lightweight structures of insect wings. By combining CNC knitting, 3D printing, and pneumatic actuation, the project creates a system capable of responsive, kinetic behavior with a focus on ambient sound and lightweight form. Through a series of material experiments and design iterations, the project advances the development of TTCs, addressing challenges like consistent adhesion, dynamic porosity, and material brittleness, ultimately achieving an innovative, sensorial, and experiential space.
MSDMT CAPSTONE
DIGITAL AND MATERIAL TECHNOLOGIES CAPSTONE STUDIO
MSDMT 700 - FALL 2024
Sean Ahlquist
This course is the culmination of the academic course of study. Participants are expected to apply new skills and knowledge towards advancing the discipline through their projects. Intensive and research-based, participants will be required to document their research and project-based work in partial fulfillment of their degree. Outside expert discussion is integrated into the MS Capstone through one or a series of colloquia presentations and public exhibitions by participants.
In this capstone studio, students synthesize computational, material, and design innovations to propose new directions in architectural discourse. While recent lines of inquiry—such as programmable surfaces, biomimetic design, and interactive textiles—illustrate the studio’s breadth, they also demand critical examination of feasibility, sustainability, and ethical implications. By documenting both process and outcomes, participants confront the gaps between conceptual ambitions and real-world constraints, building a body of research that both advances and interrogates emerging practices. Engagement with visiting experts situates each project in the broader disciplinary conversation, challenging students to refine assumptions and deliver rigorously substantiated contributions to the field.
THIRD LANDSCAPES
Anya Sirota
Faced with budgetary constraints, the Detroit Institute of Arts undertakes a partial reconstruction of its underground parking structure—retaining the existing perimeter walls while reducing the garage’s overall footprint. Rather than infill the resulting void, the project reclaims it as a sunken garden. This residual space becomes a site of architectural and environmental leverage: integrating water management systems with a curatorial landscape for contemporary cultural production. Subsurface infrastructure—typically concealed—is made legible as a civic artifact. Structural retaining walls are reimagined as exhibition surfaces; excavation becomes public realm. The intervention aligns economic necessity with spatial invention, proposing a new typology of hybrid space where hydrology, landscape, and cultural programming converge. In doing so, the project reframes renovation not as compromise, but as an opportunity to generate public value through adaptive reuse—advancing a model for low-carbon, performative infrastructure that is both contextspecific and generative.
THIRD LANDSCAPES
Curricular connections
RE:FOCUS
STUDENT
Orli Schwartz
re:focus interrupts the pattern of rapid development occurring along the highly contaminated Gowanus canal in Brooklyn to force a reexamination of our relationship to the ecology of spaces that we have used and forgotten but are on the precipice of being absorbed back into our development narrative. The term exclusion zone signifies defined areas where access or specific activities are prohibited, typically for defensive, construction, or safety reasons. This proposition co-opts that term, examining the existing fabric of Gowanus to propose 3 typologies of exclusion zones to set aside space for third landscapes. Within each, the construction of an exclosure, acts as a stepping stone, leaving the sites the space to evolve in their own ways. Through the redrawing of the possible futures of these spaces and their qualities, we can begin to understand their value within the more-than-human fabric of the city.
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS__ DESIGNING FOR COMFORT IN TIMES OF HEAT
ARCH 672 - FALL 2024
Claudia Wigger
Over the past 150 years, the combustion of coal, oil, and gas has continuously released heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, driving up average global temperatures and setting heat records. Nearly everywhere around the world, heat waves are more frequent and longer lasting than they were 70 years ago. This disproportionately affects poorer and marginalized communities, making them more vulnerable to extreme heat. Neither energy-efficient glazing nor LEED certificates will insulate humanity from the effects of the climate crisis; instead, architects must be responsible towards the sites they are asked to build in, imagining new forms of architecture and environmental care that include more-than-human worlds. With the increasing urgency to address the climate emergency, there is a serious need for designers to consider the local climatic context and energy resources for their work and tackle the sources of pollution and damage rather than mitigating their consequences. This requires significant efforts towards re-wilding, afforestation, biodiversity conservation, and environmental stewardship.
In Praise of Shadows seeked to explore the concept of ‘Shadows’ as a crucial element in architectural and urban space making, aiming to create spaces that offer comfort and relief from rising heat. We utilized “Shadows” as a narrative tool to represent environmental performance, as well as atmospheric qualities that addressed more imaginative dimensions of worldmaking. Passive building systems, productive landscapes, and water infrastructure were of equal interest, along with experience through the senses and aesthetic reception, such as beauty, pleasure, and delight.
The studio conducted research into the historic, cultural, economic and political contexts of landscape, hydrology, wildlife, climate and atmospheres and worked on the design of ‘Shadows’ in various scales from the material scale to urban interventions.
BIODIVERSITY
Jonathan Rule
Ana Morcillo Pallarés
Deploy 2.0 advocates to engage the needs of other agents and non-human species in particular plants. Using a deployable structure as a prototype to mediate sun exposure and promote plant growth, the project draws attention to biodiversity preservation for the medicinal plant garden at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. In a time where there is a heightened awareness of the human impact on the environment, how can architectural practices alleviate and improve the spatial conditions for humans and nonhumans alike? The proposal revisits lightweight architectures as non-permanent and flexible catalysts for the collective experience. The modular system is designed to expand and contract, imitating the annual cycle of a deciduous tree. During the spring and summer, the structure “blooms” and provides shade that allows for the density of the shade to be tuned to the needs of the plants below. During the fall and winter months, the canopy collapses, allowing for maximum sunlight to reach the plants below. The project’s dynamic, playful, and sensorial presence encourages learning about the affordances of medicinal plants and lightweight deployable structures. In addition, it serves as a demonstration of principles for sustainability through passive systems and simple actions that promote environmental awareness.
BIODIVERSITY
Curricular connections
RE-GRAND MARAIS
STUDENTS
Vanessa Lekaj, Patrick Wilton, Stephanie Dutan
This project uses density gradation as a guide towards interspecies coexistence, maintaining and celebrating the urban wilding and temporal qualities of a threeblock 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 cognizant dwelling. A network of hardscapes and softscapes stitches together housing corridors and adjacent blocks by leveraging foliage for the seasonal reshaping of desire lines.
COLLECTIVES STUDIO
ARCH 562 - WINTER 2024
Craig Borum + Claudia Wigger
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.
BIOMATERIALS
ZERO EMISSION DEHUMIDIFICATION DEVICE
Lars Junghans
Collaborators: Steven Schenk, Lisa Mandelartz Schenk, Hai Jie Tan, Tijs Vangenechten, of Shenk.zone
Student research assistants: Srihitha Nimmagadda and Pranavi Gudi.
Built from bio-based hempcrete —a porous mixture of hemp and lime—Junghans and Schenk’s device reduces a room’s humidity by absorbing it through capillary condensation and drying by high air velocity produced via solar chimney; as solar radiation is absorbed by the chimney’s darkened, external surface at the top of the duct, it creates an updraft that increases air velocity. This drying effect on the surface then causes moisture in the capillaries of the hemp to move from the room-facing surface to the backside of the porous wall. “This principle is causing an ongoing dehumidification effect for the room if the air velocity and/ or solar radiation is high,” Junghan says. The idea is to provide an alternative to traditional methods of dehumidifying buildings, which typically require large amounts of energy used to power air conditioners or chillers.
Completed illustration by Schenk.zone
REPAIR
HOLDING PATTERN
De Peter Yi
Cyrus Peñarroyo
Holding Pattern is a game that invites players to learn about vacant building reuse through a fun and collaborative format. Players embody different actors to bring different vacant buildings through phases of reuse, including acquiring ownership, determining use, securing finances, and completing construction. Actors are inspired by the network of organizations and individuals working on vacant building reuse in Cincinnati, including city agencies, builders, community development corporations, nonprofits, developers, community organizers, businesses, material salvage operations, and skilled craftspeople. We aim to bring this game to neighborhoods and organizations across Cincinnati as a learning and engagement tool in order to strengthen community resilience.
REPAIR
Curricular connections
SEEDED TERRITORIES
STUDENTS
Nayana Durga Naik, Elyse Cote
Seeded Territories reimages the St. Clair watershed in eastern Michigan by centering three ecosystem entities – soil, seeds, waterfowl – as agents of reparations, restorations, and revival. Working across scales, we start with game areas to address perceptions of waterfowl, leverage infrastructure, and refine regulations. The agricultural riparian scale stabilizes habitat while negotiating land use frictions. The agrosilvopastoral scale disrupts separation of land use to promote environmental stewardship between livestock, crops, trees, and people. The project proposes that a mallard duck dispersing white pine seeds into regenerated soil can transform the watershed, championing spatial justice, Right of Nature, and interdependent ecological relations.
EXIST, FLOURISH, EVOLVE
MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN STUDIO I
MUD 712 - FALL 2024
Gabriel Cuéllar
For Fall 2024, this studio has focused on imagining and articulating how urban design, as a discipline, practice, and material reality, can help uphold the Rights of Nature. The Rights of Nature are an emerging paradigm pioneered by Native communities across Turtle Island. Exploring the principle that certain entities have the intrinsic right to “exist, flourish, and evolve,” the studio produced concrete manifestations of reciprocity embodied in more-than-human rights. Our multifaceted subject was the sixty major watersheds of ‘Michigan’, whose ecological communities and dynamics figured as protagonists in our studio. We sought to reinforce Native cultures and Native sovereignty, address climate and environmental change, and grapple with legal aspects, such as property and conservation law. Our work collectively aimed to define, in terms of urban design, how potential rights-bearing entities—watersheds, wetlands, rivers, lakes, shores, aquifers, and more—can play a role in reshaping socio-ecological and spatial relations today. Acknowledging that Rights of Nature are, for the moment, written aspirations, our goal was to develop the spatial dimensions, protocols, patterns, and relations that could support them. The Native-led Rights of Nature movement coincides with historian of science Deborah Coen’s work on the “Forest-Climate Problem,” which raises the question, at what point does the activity on one parcel of land become a problem for neighboring and further removed parcels of land? And where can such grievances be heard? The Rights of Nature thus compels designers, therefore, to think in a transboundary way.
GREEN INFRASRUCTURE
Curricular connections
STREET PLANTERS FOR DOWNTOWN
STUDENT
Audrey Tang, Devin Vowels
This Urban Technology studio teaches students to generate new understandings of urban systems as experienced by humans. Through the creation of “proprietary data,” students develop a unique take on the affordances, use, and misuse of physical and digital infrastructures. This project investigates the presence and distribution of planter boxes in downtown Ann Arbor, identifying and classifying their count, type, location, and density. It also explores how these planters serve the different needs of business owners, customers, pedestrians, and the public works department as a type of civic infrastructure.
DESIGN & URBAN INQUIRIES
URBAN TECHNOLOGY STUDIO
UT 230 - WINTER 2023
This Urban Technology studio (UT230), taken in sophomore year, teaches students how to ask careful questions about urban phenomena and, following those lines of inquiry, how to identify responses and possible solutions. The first part of the semester introduces data visualization and mapping. Students will gather, synthesize, and present information to create a new understanding of the lived experience of the city. Building on their findings, students will then develop and prototype a design intervention to enhance the legibility and livability of the city. Questions of composition, perspective, scale, form, and appropriateness will be explored throughout.
Elisa Ngan
CIRCULAR Climate Futures
CIRCULAR Climate Futures
WASTE STREAM ECONOMIES
ADAPTIVE REUSE
BUILDING PERFORMANCE
MACHINE LEARNING PERFORMANCE MODEL
MATERIAL USE OPTIMIZATION
OPTIMIZATION
ZERO WASTE FABRICATION
GEOMETRIC THERMAL PERFORMANCE
DECARBONIZATION
BIOMATERIALS
Research, creative practice and student work that offers alternatives to how resources are conceptualized, accessed, and utilized, reconceptualize contemporary paradigms of extraction, consumption, and waste and/or demonstrate approaches to materials, assemblies, and/or systems that model circularity.
WASTE STREAM ECONOMIES
EXPANDING URINE RECYCLING
2023-2028
Nancy Love
Jennifer Blesh
Lesli Hoey
The historical “metabolic rift”— the separation of cities and their “waste” from farms—created a linear approach to managing human waste, resulting in a cascade of mounting environmental, social, and economic side effects. Lesli Hoey (Taubman College), Nancy Love (Engineering), and Jennifer Blesh (SEAS) and a larger team of partners have been examining the agronomic, engineering and regulatory systems needed to expand “urine recycling”, one approach to circular economies that is (re)gaining ground in Europe, but which is underutilized in the United States. Urine recycling could revolutionize wastewater treatment systems that are aging, overburdened, costly, energy-intensive and inefficient at recovering nutrients— which are also straining housing in many cities and towns and rural areas that rely on septic systems—while lowering dependence on concentrated and unreliable global fertilizer supply chains, reducing associated greenhouse gas emissions, and creating local jobs.
Funded by the USDA, NSF, Graham Sustainability Center, and UM’s OVPR.
WASTE STREAM ECONOMIES
Curricular connections
WASTESCAPE - FULL CIRCLE
STUDENT
Julia Bohlen
The research and minigame seek to confront issues of urban waste management facing the City of Detroit, especially the role of consumer behavior. The minigame simulates multiple “paths” for waste disposal and circularity, which reveal and expose the challenges and opportunities that must be confronted in the endeavor to achieve a truly circular economy of waste. The minigame seeks to highlight the challenges and tradeoffs associated with various disposal facilities, including cost, environmental impact, convenience, and others. The research behind the game also sheds light on the unique adversities Detroit faces in terms of waste management, including declining urban infrastructure, a shrinking tax base from which to support waste management infrastructure, and the vast quantities of waste imports from other countries.
NEGOTIATING THE CITY
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
ARCH 672 - FALL 2024
Jose Sanchez
This studio is an introduction to urban simulation as a design tool. The course is technical and theoretical, connecting notions of programming and simulation with the nature of computer modeling and ecological perspectives towards non-human agents. The studio provides a series of tutorials for developing simulations within the Unity3D game engine environment, inviting students to collaborate to develop an interactive urban simulation game.
The study of complex adaptive systems in architecture has been characterized through a shift toward formalism, in which simulations of flocks and swarms become techniques for complex geometrical modeling. Such approaches fail to harness the opportunity of developing an ecological awareness around the possible interactions between systems within a design domain. The simulation of ecologies relies on key concepts such as feedback loops and interdependence between actors. Such actors can be identified as both humans and non-humans. An objectoriented framework enables each actor to establish interactions with other actors without a hierarchy.
The simulation of an ecosystem requires defining agents as species and their interactions within an environment. By modeling interactions between digital entities, it is possible to give rise to emergent phenomena: intelligence as collective behaviors that might be considered unexpected from the behavior of an individual agent but arise once certain informational thresholds are crossed.
This studio provides the theoretical foundations to understand complex phenomena by modeling networks of interactions inviting students to design models that operate as ecologies.
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Christian Unverzagt
LSC—O is new state-of-the-art multipurpose facility in Little Village, designed by M1DTW Architects, that serves as a space to preserve and showcase the extensive art collections and archives of sister galleries Library Street Collective and Louis Buhl & Co. The interior is configured as a support space for the client’s curatorial needs and includes a private viewing room and dedicated photography center. A system of ready-made industrial pallet racks was adapted to store and protect items from damage and to help define the building’s other uses. The project is inherently flexible and achieves its goals with a limited material palette, including a burnished concrete floor, raw wood ceiling, and gallery white walls. Spaces are defined by the placement of commercial pallet racks, powder-coated in a custom color. Racks adjacent to the entryway and office area are clad on one side in wood panels ripped from Baltic birch plywood to define ‘front of house’ areas of circulation. The north street façade, where the storefront had been closed with painted CMUs, was opened and replaced with 9’ tall polycarbonate panels that wash the interior with diffuse and ever-changing natural light during the day and create a beacon-like luminous surface at night.
Completed photographs by Nev Muftari
CLIENT Library Street Collective / Anthony & JJ Curis
DESIGN
Christian Unverzagt, Thomas Affeldt, Kerry Conway, Cara Wagner, Qian He
The Marygrove elementary school provides a K-5 teaching environment within the broader campus, “cradle-to-career” pedagogical framework. Several key design goals organize the renovation approach including integrating new collaboration and maker spaces, providing access to the gymnasium for all grades, and inserting visual transparency for classrooms and common spaces. Custom classroom millwork elements provide design flexibility without impinging on historic elements. The new millwork introduces vibrant color, strategic transparency and functionality while meeting budget constraints by repeating solutions on each floor. The media center, reading room, gymnasium, restorative justice center, and maker spaces also deploy color and form to engage the children’s sense of curiosity and encourage experimentation and exploration.
CLIENT
Marygrove Conservancy, Detroit Public Schools Community District
Founded in 2006, at the peak of Detroit’s decline, MOCAD was established as a vibrant site for the exploration of new ideas in contemporary art. Housed within a former Albert Kahn designed Cadillac dealership, this project extends MOCAD’s role as a cultural hub in the center of the Detroit arts district. The grounds of the museum advance environmental storm-water management practices by using LID techniques to establish an aesthetically bold public event space that accommodates cars at other times. New openings on the east and west facades visually connect to Woodward Ave and establish a new entry and canopy while maintaining the grittiness that defines the character of MOCAD. Overall our approach enacts selective subtractions and strategic additions, to strengthen visual and programmatic connectivity and produce a porous, central community hub.
CLIENT Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD)
DESIGN PLY+
ENGINEERING
Civil: Giffels Webster
Structural: Thornton Tomasetti
M/P: Greenpath Design
Electrical: ETS Engineering
plyplus.com/museum-ofcontemporary-art-detroit
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Curricular connections
ON BROADWAY
STUDENT
Anna W. Peterson
Situated on a post-industrial site along the Huron River, the historic Argo Substation has been carefully transformed as an adaptive reuse project to function as Ann Arbor’s newest neighborhood cinema. Inspired by the substation’s heavy brick facade, I aim to explore the relationship between the existing stereotomic structure and the addition of a new, lighter tectonic framework. Ann Arbor has two notable fixed-seating cinemas, the Michigan Theater and the State Theater. With the evolving media trends of today, the On Broadway theater offers flexible seating to accommodate various viewing types, such as immersive screenings and dynamic event spaces.
UNPLUGGED STUDIO
INSTITUTIONS STUDIO
ARCH 552 - FALL 2024
The rising awareness of the effects of climate change calls for a response to a condition in which designers are increasingly compelled to transform built contexts and to address problems that had been confined to the domains of engineering, ecology, or city planning. Building on the urgent need to contest today’s energy politics of containment by reconfiguring outdated aesthetic assumptions, the ‘Unplug from DTE Studio’ invites students to reflect on an environmental awareness of a new clean-energy institution.
Drawing on a hypothetical future when DTE will leave Ann Arbor, the studio will take advantage of the privileged location of the DTE’s historic property of Argo Substation next to the Argo Cascades - today a major recreational green area but a relic of an industrial past for the production of hydroelectric power on the Huron River. The studio will stimulate the persistence of the site’s past, through its electricity legacy to envision a typology intimately related to lighting performance such as a movie theater. An opportunity that will stress the physical, symbolic and environmental importance of using the existing and consider the uniqueness of reused materials and energy in a more economic way, extending the life of the structures, at the same time advocating for a climate justice future. In a capitalist-driven society, is there still room for the environment? Can we revert the legacy of the opulent movie palaces towards a more ambivalent and playful institution? Can we change our myopic vision of inclusion and sustainability?
Ana Morcillo Pallarés
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Curricular connections
ILLUME
STUDENTS
Orli Schwartz, Larissa McCoy, Ray Richardson
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.
MAKING SPACE, LIVING SPACE, LEAVING SPACE
COLLECTIVES STUDIO
ARCH 562 - WINTER 2024
Lars Gräbner + Christina Hansen
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.
BUILDING PERFORMANCE
BEYOND TRADE-OFFS: INTEGRATING METAHEURISTICS AND AHP FOR PERFORMANCEDRIVEN BUILDING DESIGN DECISIONS
2022 - Present
Mohsen Vatandoost
This research addresses the intricate challenge of enhancing building performance across various dimensions. Multiobjective optimization involves finding optimal trade-offs among two or more conflicting objectives. Metaheuristic algorithms are used to find approximate solutions for optimization problems where exact solutions are impossible or difficult to obtain. Most of these algorithms, which typically involve repetition and randomness, draw inspiration from natural phenomena or human behaviour. This series of studies extensively utilizes various metaheuristic algorithms (e.g., GA, PSO, ACO, SA, NSGA II, and hybrid algorithms) to improve building performance.
One of the key contributions of this research is the proposal of a novel method that combines multiobjective optimization with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to rank and sort solutions on the Pareto Front. (The Pareto front is a set of optimal solutions and tradeoffs between objective functions.)
This body of research lays the groundwork for more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions.
MACHINE LEARNING PERFORMANCE MODEL
LEVERAGING MACHINE
LEARNING MODELS AND BIG DATA ANALYSIS FOR BUILDING PERFORMANCE PREDICTIONS
2025 - Present Mohsen
Peter von Buelow
Lars Junghans
Vatandoost
While computational design for measuring building performance is precise and reliable, it incurs high computational costs associated with factors such as the complexity of simulation models and the granularity of input data, which present a significant challenge. In contrast, data-driven design and prediction based on large datasets can assist designers in evaluating building performance quickly and accurately at the early stages of design. This research utilizes advanced machine learning algorithms (RF, DT, KNN, SVM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) to achieve high predictive accuracy.
The challenges in utilizing ML models include the fact that these datasets do not exist or are not accessible; thus, part of this research focuses on generating such data for building an ML model.
The use of ML models has the potential to provide a solution to climate change and carbon footprint issues by enabling more accurate predictions, optimizing energy consumption, improving climate modelling, identifying emission reduction opportunities, and supporting data-driven policy and decision-making.
SPLAM, SPatial-LAMinated timber (SLT) reconsiders the conventional use of nominal framing systems, mainly with 2X4s, to design an engineered structure that uses about 46% less material compared to typical CLT structures of the same loading capacity. The SPLAM timber pavilion was part of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial Exhibition, The Available City.
The project is a collaboration with Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Epic Academy, where the project remains after the exhibition as a flexible outdoor classroom for the South Shore public high school.
MATERIAL USE OPTIMIZATION
Curricular connections
I LIKE THAT BURROS BALL TOO
STUDENT
Matthew Daines
A stable is meant to contain an animal and separate it from human spaces. In this fieldhouse, the separation of spaces is minimized. Through the creation of 3 different buildings with blurred boundaries, program is designed to advocate for Burro and Human interaction. The construction of the building focused on site available materials to mitigate carbon emissions, while keeping a sense of connection between the Architecture and the land. This is done through recycling existing trees cleared from the site, to create siding and structural components. This fieldhouse focuses on creative joinery to combine natural mediums with standardized elements.
FIELDHOUSE - A CULTURAL AND SPORTS CENTER
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO II
ARCH 322 - WINTER 2024
Mick Kennedy
Originally, a side building next to an outdoor sports field, that could house equipment, or changing rooms, a field house has become a building for indoor sports, in a sense growing to house the field. Increasingly access to sport facilities is privatized limiting access to wellness and fitness, space for play, and sport within the city. While any surface can become a site of play – in many cities, such fields and courts for ball sports are booked months in advance, running a multi-season schedule and use is allowed only for sanctioned, and paid activities.
The shift to housing fields, is also climatically related. Ball sports can now be played year round in cold climates, as well as climates that are rapidly heating up. These buildings typically expend energy to condition the temperature of the large spaces within and are generally poorly equipped to sustain those temperatures. Spaces such as these are flexible in their capacities to mark the boundaries of multiple sports, but also to serve as spaces of assembly, voting centers and shelters in time of emergency. They can be thought of as general purpose buildings that can “field” a wide range of programming, staging a contradiction between the highly specific and choreographed performances they intend to house, and the sometimes other less ruled programs they also service.
A Fieldhouse is a Cultural and Sports Center that finds its footing in the space of sports industrial complex and climate through the realization of a building that can house simple spaces for the practice of a sport.
OPTIMIZATION
KNIT CASTING-FUNCTIONALLY GRADED KNITS FOR VOLUMETRIC CONCRETE CASTING
2020-2022
Sean Ahlquist
Tsz Yan Ng
Evgueni Filipov
Knit Casting explores the use of bespoke Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) manufactured knits to produce volumetric textile formwork for casting glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC). As a collaboration between experts in architecture, textile fabrication, and civil engineering, the research investigates multimaterial, functionally-graded knit formwork as a fully seamless system to cast concrete. The research is comprised of design and manufacturing of customized CNC knitted formwork, working with limitations and parameters inherent to industrial knitting processes as well as concrete casting techniques which required rheological calibration. There are four different typologies developed: the diagrid, drupelet, aperatures, and 3D funnel shell.
ZERO WASTE FABRICATION
ULTRA-THIN LAYERED 3D-PRINTED RECYCLABLE AND REUSABLE FORMWORK FOR CASTING COMPLEX CONCRETE GEOMETRIES
2024-Present
Wes McGee Mohsen Vatandoost
Peter von Buelow
While computational design has enabled the creation of complex geometries, construction remains challenged by inefficiencies and high costs. The proposed method involves creating bespoke, ultrathin layered, 3D-printed reusable formwork by utilizing additive manufacturing, 3D printing techniques, and hollow-core sections, which can achieve a sustainable, zero-waste, lowcarbon fabrication process.
The formwork wall is stiffened using truss-like sections to withstand the hydrostatic pressure of wet concrete on a large-scale construction, while hollow-core sections significantly reduce material usage. To demonstrate the feasibility of the method, an arch was fabricated as a lightweight, thin concrete structure. The components were 3D-printed using a robotic arm, and concrete was cast within them. The formwork is ground, recycled, and reused.
The use of 3D printing technology for creating formwork for concrete has the potential to provide a solution to climate change and carbon footprint issues. It enhances geometric flexibility, leading to construction methods that use materials more efficiently and reduce waste, which can revolutionize the construction sector.
We ask: what can be done with our classically determined “waste” materials? This CLT housing proposal densifies the properties of Ann Arbor neighborhoods and promotes a D.I.Y. approach to home construction, maintenance and income stream. By partnering with SCRAP Creative Reuse, a local non-profit and other recycling centers around Ann Arbor, this domicile opens possibilities for collective ownership and individual customization of one’s living space. From repurposed domestic materials that never really ‘die’, an evolving multifamily home and makerspace is created. The opportunity to live and work contributes to a new status-quo of secondary life through Scrap CLT’s construction. Materials are not meant to be disposed after one use. Spaces are not meant to serve only one function. Not just a house, but a public amenity. This is the motto of Scrap CLT. *
DO-IT-YOURSELF: TRUST CITY
COLLECTIVES STUDIO
ARCH 562 - WINTER 2024
Gabriel Cuéllar
How can a community land trust reshape a city? This studio section is framed around the design agenda of a hypothetical community land trust. Following the ethic that shapes such trusts, the studio will chart out how design can cultivate solidarity with the future through intervening in the housing system (legalfinancial frameworks), material resourcefulness (upcycling and bio-based materials), and spatial versatility (flexible mixed-use buildings that densify the singlefamily fabric). As we follow the trajectory of the trust, we will design the renovation of a single house, mixed-use building prototypes suited to prevailing lot increments, and an urban vision that sees the trust restructure the property dynamics in the city.
ZERO WASTE FABRICATION
Curricular connections
DISASSEMBLY
STUDENT
Ethan Bierlein
This is a post office that receives and repurposes unwanted shoes and housewares resulting from e-commerce overconsumption. To intervene in waste, a disassembly of these goods allows for the recognition of their integration to become useful in activities of reassembly and restoration. With physical surroundings increasingly influenced by our digital habits, the project program was designed to provide space for the repurposing of shoes and houseware’s individual components. Similar to the disassembly of goods for repurposing, the same strategy is applied architecturally through the breakdown of existing walls to repurpose the rubble for new gabion walls. In addition to processing mail, this project will promote a culture of material reuse by offering transparent spaces of collaboration that invite people to engage with wasteful returns. Ultimately the post office looks to build a community around the reuse of their own consumption.
THE POSTAL SERVICE
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO III
ARCH
The United States Postal Service has played a critical role in the early development of the U.S., establishing a communications infrastructure that connected cities, towns, and remote settlements. In its early years, the USPS promoted literacy, education, and commerce while enabling civic discourse. It provided an affordable and reliable means for people to stay connected, regardless of distance.
Today, the USPS remains the most widespread government agency, with the largest fleet of trucks and the most brick-andmortar locations across urban and rural America. However, its role has diminished significantly. The rise of digital communication, e-commerce, and electronic payments has drastically reduced reliance on traditional mail. Since 2006, the Postal Service has been unprofitable, facing competition from private couriers, internal inefficiencies, and regulatory constraints. This decline is reflected in post office architecture, where older buildings conveyed permanence and civic identity, while newer ones are often smaller, more generic, and cheaply built.
For architecture students, the post office presents a multilayered design challenge: balancing logistics and security with publicfacing operations, integrating with the larger postal network, and reimagining its role in civic society.
Cyrus Peñarroyo
GEOMETRIC THERMAL PERFORMANCE
FUNCTIONALLY GRADED MATERIAL: PERFORMANCE THROUGH CONTINUOUS MATERIAL VARIATION
2024-Present
Rachael Henry
Alireza Fazel
Wes McGee
This research explores the potential of functionally graded, multi-material additive manufacturing (FGAM) to produce high-performance, materially efficient building components. In architecture and construction, this local tailoring can address daylight transmission and structural performance by creating components with materials possessing tunable stiffness, such as fiber-reinforced composites. The main objectives include optimizing geometry and material performance for both structural integrity and passive solar thermal control, establishing a robust design framework for functionally graded materials, and evaluating the effectiveness of FGAM through structural tests. The methodology involves developing novel hardware and software tools for large-scale polymer additive manufacturing using a dual-screw pellet extrusion system for precise multi-material deposition. A computational design framework is used to optimize the variation in material properties across a component. The system was evaluated by building and testing full-scale prototypes. Results show that material composition and rib geometry significantly affect angular light distribution, transmission stability, and daylight availability.
This work was funded by the Taubman College Pressing Matters program.
DECARBONIZATION
3D PRINTING OF ENGINEERED CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITE BUILDING COMPONENTS
2017-Present
Tsz Yan Ng
Wes McGee
Victor Li
A major obstacle for real-world application of 3DP as a concrete construction method is the need for steel reinforcement and the challenges it presents to the 3DP process. Self-reinforced “Engineered Cementitious Composites” (ECC/SHCC) have the potential to remove the dependence on conventional steel reinforcement for structural integrity, durability, reliability and robustness. Steel reinforcement is a significant percentage of the embodied carbon in concrete construction, and simultaneously a source of long-term degradation due to corrosion. This project focuses on multiple aspects of 3DP ECC in construction, including the development of novel technologies for depositing the material (which has a much higher viscosity due to the reinforcing fibers) as well as the development of prototypical building components to showcase the technical capabilities.
The work was funded by the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, UM College of Engineering, and the AIA Upjohn Research Initiative.
MATERIAL REUSE
Curricular connections
BREAK OUT OF THE BROKEN
STUDENT
Ruixue Yang
This visitor center focuses on the recycling and reuse of discarded Low-E glass. Low-E glass is a sustainable material that reduces energy loss through a special coating, but its 15year lifespan makes recycling challenging.The center engages the public through workshops and artistic creations. The main entrance on the west third floor leads to an 10 meters high exhibition space showcasing a large-scale hanging installation made from recycled glass.The east second floor houses an art sales area and offices, the third floor features a mezzanine exhibition space, and the ground floor is dedicated to glass cutting, crushing, and burning. The design uses fractured Low-E glass shapes for window openings, embodying the theme—rebirth through fragmentation.
[MATERIAL] VISITOR’S CENTER
SITUATION STUDIO
ARCH 422 - WINTER 2024
Peter Halquist
Arch 422, the final studio in the first year of the M.Arch program, introduces a range of design methods and representational techniques that interrogate materials up close and within the distributed contexts of their life cycles. From part-to-whole logics of assemblies to the cultural and ecological impacts of building materials, students make connections between the physical qualities of architecture and what they tells us about the world.
Throughout the semester, students work between physical making & material experimentation and life cycle research on a material of their choice. Students develop individual positions on their material–from societal impacts to unseen labor practices, from endof-life challenges to alternative uses, and other insights that inform their designs. Meanwhile they use drawing and models to test tectonic approaches to configuring space and program through specific qualities of their materiality.
These studies culminate in a proposal for a [Material] Visitor’s Center next to the Cuyahoga River, surrounded by Cleveland Ohio’s steel industry. While visitor’s centers typically create a space for people to learn and appreciate sites associated with traditional ideas of nature, beauty and human history, these projects reimagine the visitor’s center as a place that produces and maintains knowledge of material processes that underpin contemporary life, as well as the people and landscapes involved in those processes.
MATERIAL REUSE
Curricular connections
POST, COMPOST, TRADING POST
STUDENT
Adena Cartsonis
The U.S.P.S. has been essential in the nation’s development, but faces challenges today due to cultural, social, and technological changes. These shifts have also driven wasteful consumer habits, with many items falling into landfills due to inefficient reverse logistics. The post is an intermediary between the consumer and retailer becoming a potential vehicle in repurposing unwanted items. This adaptive reuse proposal for the South Adams post in Ypsilanti, Michigan focuses on confronting overconsumption by visually and directly engaging the community through facilitating processes of paper making and mailing (i.e. composting, growing, trading, pneumatic tube transporting).
REVERSE LOGISTICS: REDESIGNING POSTAL ALTERNATIVES FOR UNWANTED STUFF
UNDERGRADUATE 3 STUDIO
ARCH 432 - FALL 2024
Cyrus Peñarroyo
This studio focused on the planetary implications and architectural possibilities of reverse logistics, or “the movement of goods from the consumer to their place of manufacture, sale, or disposal.” We considered the environmental harm of the returns industry, the influence of the internet on consumer behavior, and the post office as a potential site for the re-valuing of material. Participants worked at both the territorial and architectural scales, beginning with research on the flow of commonly returned items and ending with a design proposal for the adaptive reuse of a postal facility in Ypsilanti. Students intervened in earlier steps of reverse logistics by reimagining the post office as a place for recycling, repurposing, or repairing unwanted consumer goods. Beyond the processing of these items, the proposals also tested alternative forms of collective experience with this excess stuff—in other words, what social or cultural benefits could be ascribed to so-called undesirable items if we are able to see them anew?
The term “unwanted” was also applied to the U.S. Postal Service itself whose relevance and future has been debated despite its status as a public good. If one of the early ambitions of this American institution was to “foster a common culture” via the distribution of nation-building publications, then perhaps it is capable of promoting new shared beliefs and behaviors in favor of decreased consumption. The proposals that students developed in this course leveraged the strategic positioning of the post office to advance more environmentally conscious and community-centered approaches to material exchange.
BIOMATERIALS
MYCELIUM-BASED COMPOSITE FURNITURE PROTOTYPES
2021-Present
Glenn Wilcox
Green Pop, 2023 - ongoing
Fake Out Lounge - 2023
Since 2021 I’ve been working with a material called Mycelium Based Composite (MBC), essentially the growing body of fungi without the fruiting mushroom. The mycelium will grow on a surprising number of things. I’m experimenting with different mixtures including; hemp, shop waste, and other ingredients like used coffee. After growing in a mold for several weeks the material is dried and maintains the consistency and structural capacity of Styrofoam (EPS) and bonds surprisingly well to a number of things like wood, cardboard, and fabrics –particularly natural materials, but plastics too. The goal is to make furniture that is both useable and compostable.
2023
SNERT series - 2022
REIMAGINED REIMAGINED Climate Futures
REIMAGINED Climate Futures
NARRATIVE DEGROWTH / SUFFICIENCY
Research, creative practice and student work that offers alternatives to how we live now, offer ways to see through entrenched contemporary paradigms, and foster imagination as the basis of systems transformation.
NARRATIVE
UNFOLDING SCENES OF CONVEYANCE
Student
Exhibition Production Assistance:
Zain AbuSeir
research assistants: Kavya Ramesh and Erin Roberts
Erin Kurtycz and Jacob Yu
Unfolding Scenes of Conveyance is work that exists within the periphery of fields of inquiry and planetary shifts, sharing the narratives of drifters, lingerers, and posts-non human witnesses of the murkiness of temporal and spatial territories of environmental shifts and planetary changes. Unfolding narratives that spatially register and translate the environmental particularities of place, and project realities and emerging patterns of ecological and climate related migrations. Suspended between factual registration and the speculative imaginary, the work unfolds scenes of entangled rhythms. The image shows drifting radiosonde detached from the weather balloon and caught up in fungal kinship, in landscapes of melting Siberian permafrost. Made with midjourney.
This project was made possible with funding from Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Visualization was made possible with the support of TvLab, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
NARRATIVE
Curricular connections
RE-MEDIATED GROTTO STUDENTS
Brianna Westbrook, Michael Katsamakis, Chang Chu
Minong / Isle Royale has been shaped by human presence for thousands of years. Once an Anishinaabe berry reserve and site for copper mining, the archipelago is now a National Park with limited access, where ecological imbalance grows as human intervention diminishes. Beneath the islands lies a network of abandoned copper mines, contaminated by atmospheric toxins from tailings and industries along Lake Superior, serve as reservoirs of ecological degradation. We propose a constructed geology for surface water remediation. Passive systems engage the basalt’s natural filtration properties and the slopes of remaining mines.
ADAPT UP
PROPOSITIONS + UD STUDIO III
ARCH 672 + UD 732 - FALL 2024
El Hadi Jazairy
Michigan has garnered media attention as a potential “climate haven,” a refuge for those seeking respite from the intensifying impacts of climate change within the United States. Yet, the Upper Peninsula—representing 30% of the land area and home to only 3% of the state’s population— remains largely absent from these discussions. With its humid continental climate, rocky terrain with rolling hills, expanses of contiguous forestland, and redeveloping infrastructure, the Upper Peninsula poses unique challenges and opportunities that have yet to be fully explored. This studio offers a chance to re-imagine the Upper Peninsula, not just as a destination for domestic climate migrants, but as a region where design can thoughtfully respond the necessities of a changing world while integrating the needs of diverse species, infrastructures, and cultural practices.The studio will take a multifaceted approach to envisioning the future of the region, exploring design interventions at multiple scales and through various lenses. From the redefinition of traditional homes and residential units to the design of ritual sites connected to afterworlds, from the re-imagining of transportation infrastructures to the creation of spaces for companion species, and from the revitalization of resourcerich areas like copper mines to innovative agricultural practices— we will engage in a comprehensive rethinking of what it means to design for a changing climate in the Upper Peninsula.
NARRATIVE
Curricular connections
HOUSE’ISH OF PERPETUAL DRIFT; SYMBIOSIS IN ETERNAL NIGHTFALL; TRANSMUTATING HOUSE’ISH; AUGMENTING PHENOMENA
STUDENT
Patrick Wilton
(3 weeks each): Appropriated/ Assembled House’ish, “House’ish of Perpetual Drift”; Hybrid House’ish, “Symbiosis in Eternal Nightfall”; Two House’ishes in One, “Transmutating House’ish”
A Heinrich event stagnates the North Atlantic Current, Europe’s freezing is inevitable, and drifting icebergs must be experimented on for material processes to climatically adapt. Using baroque geometric logics, milling machinery augments the natural phenomena undertaken by the iceberg, programming a domestic journey from hibernaculum to garden.
Calved in Baffin Bay, the hibernaculum protects from frigidity until reaching the Labrador Sea. Here, the iceberg is carved and propelled into a baroque garden sustaining terrestrial and aquatic life—a procession marking the deaths of both the iceberg and preHeinrich domesticity.
3 x 3 + 6 = PINK CHICKENS
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
Each student designed four domestic worlds, or the relational properties that structure domestic environments. Three house’ishes, 3 weeks each, one at 6 weeks. We began with an Assembled/ Appropriated House (made from downloaded digital models). Two other houses were selected from: a Critical Fragments House; a Hybrid House/Garden/ Landscape House; a Drawing Type(s) House; and Two Houses in One. The fourth house, Domestic Restraints was framed in relation to American artist Matthew Barney’s ‘Drawing Restraints’ projects and his provocation that muscular development and creative growth occur through forms of resistance. Each studio member designed a house that was subjected to conceptual obstacles and site induced resistances to acquire strengthened spatial design muscles and innovative domestic fiber.
We moved between abstract situations, let’s say the x, y, z coordinate system; to ‘representational’ situations, an image of a painting; to ‘real’ situations. These variations enabled an enlargement of what kinds of situations are possible to work with in architecture. Equally, we considered material states as digitally generated, coded, and ‘real’, optimizing the possibilities of representation. We augmented, rerouted and if necessary, abandoned values inscribed in architectural education, from who’s included to what’s accepted, and how things are learned. Conceptual, methodological, and representational broadening and metaphorical amateurs, detectives and acupuncturists roamed nearby.
Perry Kulper
Curricular connections
NARRATIVE INVISIBLE CURRENTS
STUDENT
Jinyu Li
When people see “void” in architecture or space, they often perceive it as blank emptiness. However, I believe no space is truly empty—there are always invisible elements like light, temperature, and humidity in constant flux. These elements redefine “void” as a realm of possibilities and hope. In abandoned spaces, what we cannot see, light, air, and atmosphere—can foster comfort for non-human species. This project explores how we perceive and express these intangible forces and how they influence human experience, shaping new ways of understanding space
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS__ DESIGNING FOR COMFORT IN TIMES OF HEAT
ARCH 672 - FALL 2024
Claudia Wigger
Over the past 150 years, the combustion of coal, oil, and gas has continuously released heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, driving up average global temperatures and setting heat records. Nearly everywhere around the world, heat waves are more frequent and longer lasting than they were 70 years ago. This disproportionately affects poorer and marginalized communities, making them more vulnerable to extreme heat. Neither energy-efficient glazing nor LEED certificates will insulate humanity from the effects of the climate crisis; instead, architects must be responsible towards the sites they are asked to build in, imagining new forms of architecture and environmental care that include more-than-human worlds. With the increasing urgency to address the climate emergency, there is a serious need for designers to consider the local climatic context and energy resources for their work and tackle the sources of pollution and damage rather than mitigating their consequences. This requires significant efforts towards re-wilding, afforestation, biodiversity conservation, and environmental stewardship.
In Praise of Shadows seeked to explore the concept of ‘Shadows’ as a crucial element in architectural and urban space making, aiming to create spaces that offer comfort and relief from rising heat. We utilized “Shadows” as a narrative tool to represent environmental performance, as well as atmospheric qualities that addressed more imaginative dimensions of worldmaking. Passive building systems, productive landscapes, and water infrastructure were of equal interest, along with experience through the senses and aesthetic reception, such as beauty, pleasure, and delight.
The studio conducted research into the historic, cultural, economic and political contexts of landscape, hydrology, wildlife, climate and atmospheres and worked on the design of ‘Shadows’ in various scales from the material scale to urban interventions.
NARRATIVE
Curricular connections
FERAL FRONTIER
STUDENT
Ranya Liu
After centuries of human colonization, the Earth, with its retaliatory natural disasters and climate, forces humanity to challenge its domesticity. Through three exchange spaces – for food, mail, and balloting – the Belle Isle Sorting Exchange feralizes our daily domestic practices and deconstructs the architectural elements that stage them. Food is foraged, mail becomes a trade of cultural artifacts, and balloting is ritualized, the impersonal ballot replaced with a surrendering of personal items to a collective archive. In an increasingly capitalist and mechanized present, the project envisions a future where materials and manual craftsmanship are valued, and a reciprocal relationship with the land is nurtured.
SORTING EXCHANGE: FUNDAMENTALS OF SPECULATIVE FUTURES
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO III
ARCH 432 - FALL 2024
Dawn Gilpin
In 2014, the curators of the Venice Biennale provided a critical reflection of the previous century on contemporary architecture, emphasizing the importance of considering histories, material culture, political environments, and architectural elements from around the globe. This perspective will serve as a launching point for our studio’s exploration, which aims to bridge the past with speculative futures. This studio engages with the evolving state of architecture projecting forward to the year 2114. The focus is designing a civic institution dedicated to mail drop-off, delivery, and sorting. This institution will not only reflect the current needs of our society but also anticipate and shape future requirements for public exchange.
We examine the evolution of long-distance communication, tracing its development from ancient methods to contemporary practices. This historical perspective will inform our design, ensuring that it acknowledges and integrates past innovations while addressing future needs.
By investigating the interplay between material culture and political environments, we aim to develop a design that is resilient and adaptable. This will involve a thorough analysis of how materials have been used historically and how political changes have influence.
NARRATIVE
Curricular connections
BODIES: EXCHANGE FACILITY
STUDENT
Reid Graham
Amid a climate crisis, the scarcity of clean water revives human reverence for its powers, facilitating powerful interconnection between living bodies; that of the human and that of the water. The Exchange facility enables the systemic circulation of bodies through a network of infrastructural vessels. Facilitating the flow of water and staging its communicative and transformative properties, these vessels shape space for the exchange of vitality, rejuvenation and power.
SORTING EXCHANGE: FUNDAMENTALS OF SPECULATIVE FUTURES
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO III
ARCH 432 - FALL 2024
Dawn Gilpin
In 2014, the curators of the Venice Biennale provided a critical reflection of the previous century on contemporary architecture, emphasizing the importance of considering histories, material culture, political environments, and architectural elements from around the globe. This perspective will serve as a launching point for our studio’s exploration, which aims to bridge the past with speculative futures. This studio engages with the evolving state of architecture projecting forward to the year 2114. The focus is designing a civic institution dedicated to mail drop-off, delivery, and sorting. This institution will not only reflect the current needs of our society but also anticipate and shape future requirements for public exchange.
We examine the evolution of long-distance communication, tracing its development from ancient methods to contemporary practices. This historical perspective will inform our design, ensuring that it acknowledges and integrates past innovations while addressing future needs.
By investigating the interplay between material culture and political environments, we aim to develop a design that is resilient and adaptable. This will involve a thorough analysis of how materials have been used historically and how political changes have influence.
DEGROWTH / SUFFICIENCY
DEGROWTH, ENERGY SOBRIETY, LOW-TECH: TOWARDS AN ARCHITECTURE OF CONVIVIALITY
“Radical change needs to come from the ground up. Narratives must be rewritten, epistemologies shifted. . . .
[Architects can] help to redraw a world in which total energy demand is equitably lowered.”
Mireille Roddier
A built environment is a physical reification of fictions we mistake for certitudes, and our built environments index our belief in economic growth. Culturally, we are attuned to economic costs; we have been trained, simultaneously, not to see or feel energy costs. Yet the built environment does not only reflect our values, gestures, and behaviors. It (re)produces them. New forms and practices of dwelling can thereby, over time, help to transform our most deepseated perspectives.
1 Roddier, Mireille. Field Notes on Repair: 2, Places Journal, Arnay-Le-Duc, Burgundy, France, https://placesjournal.org/article/ field-notes-on-repair-2/.
2 Roddier, Mireille. Reading List | Degrowth, Energy Sobriety, Low-Tech: Towards an Architecture of Conviviality, Places Journal, placesjournal.org/reading-list/ degrowth-energy-sobriety-low-techtowards-an-architecture-of-conviviality/.
JUST Climate Futures
JUST Climate Futures
GOOD LIVING
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
Research, creative practice and student work that puts equity and human rights at the core of decision-making and action on climate change.
GOOD LIVING
CLIMAS: ACTIONS FOR GOOD
LIVING
Elizabeth Añaños Vega, Emilio Ontiveros de la Fuente, Gary Leggett Cahuas, José Luis Villanueva Castañeda, Luis Rodríguez Rivero
María Arquero de Alarcón
“CLIMAS: Actions for Good Living” was the winning curatorial proposal for the 13th edition of the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (XIII BIAU) celebrated in Lima, Peru. With almost 879 entries across different categories (Built Works, Trajectory, Pedagogies, Publications, New Rules, and Other Coordinates), the XIII BIAU serves as a space for cultural exchange, to share projects, pedagogical experiences, publications, and initiatives addressing the cultural, political and socioeconomic challenges confronting the production of more just architectural and urban practices. CLIMAS situates the production of habitat within the notion of “good living”, an Andean concept that prioritizes the practices, ancestral knowledge, and ways of living of native peoples, promoting ecological integrity, the development of technologies in harmony with the territory, and respect for all forms of life on the planet.
The XIII BIAU is sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda (MIVAU), in collaboration with the Higher Council of the Colleges of Architects of Spain and ARQUIA Foundation.
RECIPROCITY
Curricular connections
RE-EARTHING TRUST
STUDENT
Ryan Karczewski, David Vega, Aditi Verma
Based in Flint, Michigan,ReEarthing Trust is an urban design project developed within the ‘Exist, Flourish, Evolve’ studio following the Watershed model of territory study. This initiative explores trust as a spatial, ecological, and social construct, addressing systemic disinvestment and environmental injustices. Through a multispecies urbanism perspective, we reimagine urban landscapes that foster reciprocal relationships between human and non-human communities. The project interrogates land remediation, water justice, and cooperative stewardship as methods for healing both ecological and social fractures. By integrating community-led development, and regenerative design strategies, Re-Earthing Trust envisions a Flint that thrives through collective care, ecological resilience, and reintroduction to urban natures.
EXIST, FLOURISH, EVOLVE
MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN STUDIO I
MUD 712 - FALL 2024
For Fall 2024, this studio has focused on imagining and articulating how urban design, as a discipline, practice, and material reality, can help uphold the Rights of Nature. The Rights of Nature are an emerging paradigm pioneered by Native communities across Turtle Island. Exploring the principle that certain entities have the intrinsic right to “exist, flourish, and evolve,” the studio produced concrete manifestations of reciprocity embodied in more-than-human rights. Our multifaceted subject was the sixty major watersheds of ‘Michigan’, whose ecological communities and dynamics figured as protagonists in our studio. We sought to reinforce Native cultures and Native sovereignty, address climate and environmental change, and grapple with legal aspects, such as property and conservation law. Our work collectively aimed to define, in terms of urban design, how potential rights-bearing entities—watersheds, wetlands, rivers, lakes, shores, aquifers, and more—can play a role in reshaping socio-ecological and spatial relations today. Acknowledging that Rights of Nature are, for the moment, written aspirations, our goal was to develop the spatial dimensions, protocols, patterns, and relations that could support them. The Native-led Rights of Nature movement coincides with historian of science Deborah Coen’s work on the “Forest-Climate Problem,” which raises the question, at what point does the activity on one parcel of land become a problem for neighboring and further removed parcels of land? And where can such grievances be heard? The Rights of Nature thus compels designers, therefore, to think in a transboundary way.
Gabriel Cuéllar
REPAIR
Curricular
connections
RE NEW PAIR DETROIT
STUDENTS
Md Ehsan Alam, Cameron Blakely, Akshita Mandhyan
As society continues to embrace ‘new’ technologies, we believe that maintenance and repair are equally important. RENEWPAIR recognizes the University of Michigan’s Center for Innovation (UMCI) as a microcosm of the District Detroit and looks to rescript its program as a way of contemplating the university’s responsibility to Detroiters. Through reconnection, remembrance, and reparation, our counter proposal aims to repair some of Detroit’s historical urban injustices while simultaneously constructing social and economic resilience at all scales. From reactivated streets and alleyways to reprogrammed buildings and new transit connections, we propose viewing innovation not just as new, but as a complementary step to create a more resilient Detroit.
CTRL+ALT+DEL: COUNTERING AND REBOOTING THE UNIVERSITY’S INNOVATION COMPLEX
MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN STUDIO II
Cyrus Peñarroyo
Urban designers have become increasingly enrolled in the development of costly innovation centers, campuses, and districts promising to transform metropolitan areas through the commercialization of new ideas. These enclaves are designed to spur economic growth by bringing together researchers and entrepreneurs into spaces where market-driven creative exchange can occur. Despite their appeal, the efficacy of innovation centers and districts has yet to be substantiated, while institutions and investors actively support these risky projects. We need not look further than U of M’s controversial, multimillion-dollar plan to erect a shiny new “Center for Innovation” that promises to revitalize downtown Detroit...
A testbed for the development of counterproposals to the UMCI that deploy urban design and digital technology for the common good, this studio questioned innovation and rapid growth as design motivations. If technologies are indicators of shared values, what alternative technological paradigms could we put forward that deemphasize innovation and assign value elsewhere? If embracing technologies associated with the “sharing economy” is also accelerating ecological destruction, what other cooperative technologies could be introduced to promote ecological stewardship instead? If innovation districts are instruments of financial accumulation, what spatial models or practices could be advanced that recognize urban space as a common resource? Ultimately, the studio asked students to deploy urban design in a manner that holds U of M accountable for its behavior in Detroit.
MUD 722 - WINTER 2024
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
DEARBORN INDUSTRIAL GREENBELT NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS FEASIBILITY STUDY
2024
Student research assistants:
María Arquero del Alarcón
Lisa DuRussel, Curt Wolf
Kathy Velikov
Teresa Zbiciak, Richard Hua, Chengdai Yang, Jess Chen
The Dearborn Industrial Greenbelt in the Southend neighborhood envisions the coexistence of residential and industrial uses, while improving public health indicators and guiding the progressive transformation of land uses along Industrial Street. Adjacent to some of the largest industrial sites in the region, busy rail lines and truck routes, Southend’s residents are disproportionately exposed to high levels of air and noise pollution. This study conceptualizes the Industrial Greenbelt as a multifunctional vegetated buffer on city-owned properties and assesses its environmental benefits for air quality mitigation, as well as potential co-benefits, including flood and noise pollution mitigation, the creation of wildlife habitats, and an improved quality of life.
The City of Dearborn, through the Department of Public Health, commissioned the study to assess phased implementation, identify pilot projects, and pathways for multistakeholder engagement, as well as funding opportunities. The project included collaborators from the School for the Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) and the College of Engineering (CoE).
RESTORATION
Curricular connections
SOWING FIELDS
STUDENT
Ashlynn Tower
This project explores the intersection of ecological healing, community revitalization, and the restoration of lands scarred by past injustices. Through architecture, it envisions a landscape where human hands can mend both the earth and society, using sowing as a metaphor for growth and renewal. Central to the project are fields of wildflowers and bees, representing ecosystems that nurture biodiversity and ecological balance. The fieldhouse, designed for capoeira, becomes a space for cultural expression and community building, where movement, music, and nature converge. By focusing on these fields of flora, fauna, and human activity, the project highlights the transformative power of restoration, where past scars give way to new life.
FIELDHOUSE - A CULTURAL AND SPORTS CENTER
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO II
ARCH 322 - WINTER 2024
Laura Walker
Originally, a side building next to an outdoor sports field, that could house equipment, or changing rooms, a field house has become a building for indoor sports, in a sense growing to house the field. Increasingly access to sport facilities is privatized limiting access to wellness and fitness, space for play, and sport within the city. While any surface can become a site of play – in many cities, such fields and courts for ball sports are booked months in advance, running a multi-season schedule and use is allowed only for sanctioned, and paid activities.
The shift to housing fields, is also climatically related. Ball sports can now be played year round in cold climates, as well as climates that are rapidly heating up. These buildings typically expend energy to condition the temperature of the large spaces within and are generally poorly equipped to sustain those temperatures. Spaces such as these are flexible in their capacities to mark the boundaries of multiple sports, but also to serve as spaces of assembly, voting centers and shelters in time of emergency. They can be thought of as general purpose buildings that can “field” a wide range of programming, staging a contradiction between the highly specific and choreographed performances they intend to house, and the sometimes other less ruled programs they also service.
A Fieldhouse is a Cultural and Sports Center that finds its footing in the space of sports industrial complex and climate through the realization of a building that can house simple spaces for the practice of a sport.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
THE INVISIBLE CLIMATE WARRIORS: INTERSECTIONAL APPROACHES TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZING IN SETTLEMENT UPGRADING IN SÃO PAULO’S PERIPHERY
2022-2023
Student research assistants: Yunsong Liu, Srishti Jaipuria
Ana Paula Pimentel Walker
Mieko Yoshihama, Odessa Gonzalez Benson
María Arquero de Alarcón
This action research project learns from community-led urbanization experiences in favelas and occupations through a gender and climate justice lens. The project has five objectives: (1) Learn about the everyday experiences of women and LGBTQIA+ residents in these communities; (2) Coproduce popular educational materials and action research activities that promote community adaptation and mitigation strategies; and (3) Recognize the role and contributions of women and LGBTQIA+ individuals in community resilience in absence of adequate public infrastructure and resources; (4) Amplify their voices within and beyond their communities through capacity building on climate change within the context of favelas & occupations; (5) Contribute to training and capacity building for new leadership through the lens of intersectionality for climate action relevant for women, LGBTQAI+ and racial minorities in favelas and occupations.
Project partners include Anchieta, Pantanal, and Toka Communities, São Paulo’s Union of Housing Movement [UMM-SP], and Peabiru Trabalhos Comunitários e Ambientais. Sponsored by UM- Graham Institute Catalyst Grants, UM-Taubman College Pressing Matters, and UM-Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
COMMUNITY CO-CREATION
Curricular connections
AMPLIFYING THE
VOICES OF QUILOMBOLA COMMUNITIES THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM AND CULTURAL PRESERVATION
IN ALCÂNTARA, BRAZIL
STUDENTS
Cat Diggs, Fabricio Martins, Russell Lin
For centuries, the Quilombola communities in Alcântara, Brazil have endured hardships from global and state violence and oppression to which they have resisted and cultivated rich cultures and a shared sense of identity through collective ways of living. To support the Quilombola struggle and bolster awareness of this struggle, the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Capstone Studio team (U-M Team), embarked on an interactive and collaborative experience to co-develop a project with Quilombola clients, community partners, and community members. Our central goal for this project was to develop a community-based tourism (CBT) strategy that advances ethnic identity, social and environmental justice, and economic strength by employing qualitative research methods, such as case study research, a tailored literature review, informal conversations, assetmapping, oral history interviews, and photographic research to understand and assess local perspectives on and conditions for CBT.
Deep Blue DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/26594
MURP CAPSTONE
URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING CAPSTONE STUDIO
URP 603 - WINTER 2024
Ana Paula Pimentel Walker
A one-term capstone experience involving second-year students working with community-based organizations or with agencies concerned with neighborhood issues under the direction of their capstone faculty advisor. Following general introduction and orientation to the planning topic and the neighborhood, students work intensively in collaboration with neighborhood leaders and residents in improving their situation. Students use the knowledge gained from their studies to produce a plan to address a specific communityidentified need. Plans often address strengthening housing, reinforcing neighborhoods, revitalizing commercial districts, relieving transportation difficulties, dealing with contaminated sites, reinforcing industrial areas. Students may present their plan at community or agency meetings throughout the semester, with a final presentation for their faculty advisor. This course is designed to allow students to explore the professional aspects of the profession, and to gain practical training in the field.
COMMUNITY CO-CREATION
Curricular connections
THIRUPUDAIMARUTHUR BIRD CONSERVATION RESERVE STUDENTS
Akshita Mandhyan, Virginia Bassily, Haley Cope
Our project, the design of an interpretation centre for the Thirupudaimaruthur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR), reimagines interpretation in a way that is both meaningful and contextually appropriate for the local community, addressing the complex socioecological challenges of the village. By centering the needs of both the people and the environment, the design seeks to create a space that fosters deeper engagement with the landscape and its heritage. Our interpretation center is not a singular, permanent entity but a network of multiple centers— some static, some dynamic. We propose a mobile infrastructure which addresses pressing societal challenges, including infrastructure deficiencies, and accessibility barriers.
THE RIVER WHISPERS OF BIRDS, TREES, TEMPLES, AND THEIR PEOPLE
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
ARCH 672 + UD 732
Nurtured by the perennial waters of the Tamiraparani River, the Tirunelveli District is a continental migratory bird corridor and a nesting colony for local aquatic birds. Every year, the bountiful monsoon redraws the fertile Tamiraparani riverbanks, with the historic temples and the sacred rituals as the memory markers of a landscape always in shift. This riverine ecosystem is also home to an endless constellation of small towns and villages that have historically cultivated and worshiped land and water and the many forms of life they sustain. Recognizing the distinctive socio-ecological values of these natural and cultural landscapes, the Thiruppudaimarudur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR), was created in 2005. As we approach its 20th anniversary, what can we learn about the impact of this designation to steward the natural and cultural heritage in these living landscapes?
This joint MArch+MUD studio section collaborated with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a nonprofit organization committed to environmental education and the co-production of communitybased socioecological knowledge. We traveled to the Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Centre to conduct field work with ATREE, documenting onsite conditions. Building on different aspects of ATREE’s regional socioecological work, students co-developed a series of design strategies for an interpretation and landscape observatory contributing to the ongoing investigation of a regional eco-tourism initiative.
María Arquero de Alarcón
CURRICULUM + EVENTS
ARCH 313
Section 01
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
Kuukuwa Manful
ARCH 316 THEORIES & METHODS I
McLain Clutter, Ana Morcillo Pallarés
ARCH 409/509
Section 01/07
ARCH 423/ URP 423
HEALTH BY DESIGN II
Upali Nanda
INTRODUCTION TO URBAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
Larissa Larsen
ARCH 505 BUILDING ENCLOSURE SYSTEMS
Section 01
Jong-Jin Kim
ARCH 505 HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING DESIGN
Section 02
Lars Junghans
ARCH 505 SUSTAINABILITY AND AFFORDABILITY
Section 03
ARCH 507
Section 05
Lars Junghans
BIO-MATERIALS FOR DESIGNERS
Glenn Wilcox
ARCH 515 SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS
Jen Maigret
ARCH 517/
URP 555
ARCH 555/825
ARCHITECT/PLANNER AS DEVELOPER
Kit McCullough
BUILDING SYSTEMS & ENERGY CONSERVATION
Mojtaba Navvab
ARCH 575
BUILDING ECOLOGY
Jong-Jin Kim
ARCH 672/
UD 732
ARCH 709
URBAN DESIGN STUDIO III
El Hadi Jazairy
ADVANCED PROTOTYPING
Catie Newell
URP 427/527
FOUNDATIONS OF FOOD SYSTEMS
Lesli Hoey
URP 439/539
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN REAL ESTATE
Robert Burroughs, Joseph Vig
URP 445/545
CLIMATE CHANGE IN CITIES
Larissa Larsen
URP 523
COMPARATIVE PARTICIPATORY PLANNING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Ana Paula Pimentel Walker
URP 537 CLIMATE ADAPTATION PLANNING
Richard Norton
URP 552 HEALTHY CITIES
Kimberley Kinder
URP 562
Joe Grengs ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION: PLANNING FOR BIKING AND WALKING
URP 582 NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING
Madhavi Reddy
URP 620 ENERGY PLANNING
Sarah Mills
WINTER 2026
ARCH 535
CASE STUDIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY
Mojtaba Navvab
ARCH 425 ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
Section 02
ARCH 509
Section 01
ARCH 509
Section 06
ARCH 509
Section 17
ARCH 603/409
Section 01/01
Lars Junghans
HIGH DENSITY
Claudia Wigger
CLIMATES: ACTIONS FOR GOOD LIVING
María Arquero de Alarcón
RADICAL VERNACULAR
Mireille Roddier
YOUR LIFE IN RUINS: ARCHITECTURE IN THE TRANS-APOCALYPSE
Andrew Herscher
ARCH 603/409 UNDER THE CAMPUS, THE LAND
Andrew Herscher
ARCH 509
Section 24
URP 585
Section 05
Kit McCullough
Jong-Jin Kim
EVENTS Climate Futures
Healthy Cities by Design: Digital Tools & Public Participation in the South Baltic & Beyond
9/18 from 11:30 AM-12:30 PM
A. Alfred Taubman Wing Commons
Join Dr. Joanna Badach from Oslo Metropolitan University and Paulina Bone of the Digital Architecture Technology. Learn about Joanna & Paulina’s current projects, including collaborative & interdisciplinary + Prepare the European transition to zero-pollution cities
+ Engage youth in climate planning using digital tools
+ Inform smart development of urban tree canopy using digital surveying, modeling, and monitoring Their presentation will be followed by a brief round table discussion with faculty Jen Maigret, Bryan (U-M Dearborn Public Health), and moderated by Kathy Velikov.
The event is co-sponsored by Taubman Climate Futures and R+CP. It will be of interest to faculty Technology, Planning, and Architecture.
Passive House Workshop with Deborah Moelis, Co-Sponsored by AIAS
10/23 from 6-8 PM
Art & Architecture Building Room 1360
Deborah Moelis AIA is a Principal and a founding member of Handel Architects. She has lectured Passive House design, including presentations at North American Passive House Network, AIANY, Greenbuild Ireland and the International Passivhaus Institute conference in Vienna, Austria.
Ms. Moelis will be joining us to share her expertise on enclosure detailing, MEP systems, and the Passive This interactive session will be a great opportunity to deepen your understanding of high-performance be provided.
LunchUP+T with Michaela Zint: Climate Emotions and Climate Action: Rethinking Pedagogy for 11/6 from 11:30-1 PM
Art & Architecture Building Room 2115
More details coming soon.
Architecture Lab at Gdańsk University of interdisciplinary efforts to: monitoring Bryan Boyer, and Dr. Natalie Smapson and students across Urban
extensively on the principles of Greenbuild DC, nZeb in Wexford,
Passive House certification process. high-performance building design. Dinner will for a World on Fire
U-M CLIMATE WEEK FEATURED EVENTS
Refugia Festival
9/28 from 12-6
Harvest Festival
9/28 from 1-4
Refugia Festival advocates for environmental conservation and preservation through the sense of sound. Our festival highlights the sonic beauty of our natural surroundings through music performances, educational programming, and community service to create meaningful environmental change on a local level.
The University of Michigan Sustainable Food Program (UMSFP) and the Campus Farm invite you to HarvestFest 2025. This celebration of sustainable food systems is located at the U-M Campus Farm and Matthaei Botanical Gardens (1800 N Dixboro Rd).
Campus as Lab Open House
9/29 from 5-7
The Campus as Lab Open House hosted by Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) will utilize the dynamic infrastructure of Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Campus Farm as an interactive environment to introduce, connect, and engage the university community in collective celebration of UM’s Campus as Lab opportunities.
Day of Service
9/29 from 1-4
Join fellow students, faculty, and staff in taking tangible steps toward a more sustainable future—and making a real impact. From removing invasive species and picking up litter to documenting and reducing bird collisions, your time and effort help translate climate goals into visible, measurable action and support lasting solutions on campus and in the broader community.
Energy 101 and Energy Models Panel
9/30 from 11-1
Have you ever wondered: how does our energy grid really work? Hear a group of experts break down the multifaceted energy system and how different utility models operate within it! This panel-style event will provide opportunities for interdisciplinary discussion and Q+A to build audience understanding.
For more events and details, visit the U-M Climate Week website.
Wege Lecture with Jennifer Granholm
9/30 from 5:30-6:30
This year’s Wege Lecture features Jennifer Granholm, former U.S. Energy Secretary and Governor of Michigan. Join us as she addresses the urgent sustainability challenges of our time, from clean energy transitions to climate change.
Powerless: the People’s Struggle for Energy & Justice at Home
10/1 from 8:30-11
Dr. Diana Hernandez, a sociologist by training, examines the social and environmental determinants of health. She has studied the impacts of policy and place-based interventions on the well-being of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, with a focus on energy insecurity. Join us for a lecture on her transformative work, followed by a fireside chat with SEAS Professor Tony Reames about what it will take to build a more equitable energy system for all.
Artistic Approaches to Making an Environmentally Just World 10/3 from 1-3
What is required to approach the creation of performance, visual art, architecture, and design in a sustainable way? As climate change continues, how do artists, architects, and designers need to reconsider how they do their work? How might students incorporate environmental justice into their emerging artistry? In this interactive conversation, facilitated by U-M Faculty Director of Arts Research/Creative Practice
Clare Croft, artists, architects, and arts administrators–from across UM and Southeast Michigan–will share approaches to these necessary and contemporary questions. Together, we’ll look at examples of how all of us in the arts are shifting how we work and/or amplifying particular aspects of our practice in response to climate change and other environmental realities. Hosted at Taubman College.
Nigamon / Tunai Performance
10/4 from 7:30-9
Nigamon / Tunai (the words translate to “song” in the Anishinaabemowin and Inga languages) is an immersive performance ritual rooted in the presence of the natural world and co-exists with the audience, who are in close proximity to the performers on the Power Center stage.
Produced by Climate Futures (Jen Maigret, Director and Sophie Gabrysiak, Associate Project Manager) with graphics developed by Amber Mortzfield at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, 2025.
Typeset in Helvetica, Kole P, Poppins.
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent edi
