The key component of this initiative Smithgroup JJR would like to share is the city-wide industrial adaptive reuse strategy, being developed by SmithGroupJJR’s Detroit-based urban design studio. Our client is Detroit Future City, and a multimember stakeholder group representing a number public, private, and non-profit interests. Our 8-month effort is focused on developing thoughtful, innovative, and inclusive strategies for the reutilization for nearly 6 square miles of underutilized space for workforce, sustainable systems, recreation, and community support.
SmithGroupJJR has been part of Detroit’s transformative history for the past 165 years. Our mission is to create a legacy of inspiring places that enhance the environment and enrich the human experience. We collaborate with stakeholders, partners, and clients to design responsive, and impactful buildings, landscapes, systems, and urban environments. SmithGroupJJR is committed to fostering a design culture that creates environments that are inclusive to all those that use and shape them. Our work operates at the intersection of human ambition, collective insight, and empathy. We understand it’s not enough to simply recognize how different viewpoints can shape the urban development. Instead, we strive to develop and define work that resonates with the very audiences for whom this work is shaped.
Pinkzoning/Mix Tape – for City of Detroit – Pink Zoning Detroit, now called MIX TAPE, is a research project for the Detroit’s Planning&Development Department, that targets three commercial corridors in the city, for which the selected firms worked to create a vision for redevelopment. Those ideas were tested against existing codes to identify how regulations may be changed to make redevelopment simpler. Maurice Cox, Director of PDD, selected three partners to help the city: Farr Associates/PlaceMakers/CHA, SmithGroupJJR and Laavu.
City of Detroit Planning and Development Dept.
Laavu
Dan Kinkead
Co-Director, National Urban Design Practice
dan.kinkead@smithgroupjjr.com
500 Griswold Street, Suite 1700, Detroit, Michigan 48226
