Peds + Cars

Walking.  The cheapest mode of transportation!  So, why don't more folks walk- in a city like Detroit?  The Motor City is really designed for motor vehicles; its hard for folks to even think about walking somewhere.  The automobile is in our system- automatic answer to go somewhere.. 

An architectural design studio called Urban Engine [under the direction of Amy Deines, UDM, in collaboration with Will Alsop + Gregory Woods of Alsop Architects] explores rethinking the Woodward Corridor.  This is one way to think about Pedestrians + Car culture and the role of technology in an urban context.

Urban Engine :

‘What is the word on the street?  The street is the democratic metric against which the urban populace is measured and defined.’

The studio investigates an alternative design process to develop an urban strategy which  reacts to the deteriorating urban fabric of a post industrial city, Detroit. 

Perception of the city  is a function of speed and time due to the development of technology and mass communication.  The studio attempts to create a strategy which explores both  issues affecting city growth and development.

A team [Veronica Allen, Jeff Harris Evan Veit, + Kaija E Wuollet] urban strategy is developed using a contextual approach and the Woodward Corridor as an ‘urban engine’ for the development of the city.

Individual interventions are developed to test the central thesis.

URBAN PULSE

Pulse :
Every city has a pulse; an identity which is understood and created by the city dwellers, visitors and tourists experience. A city grows and develops its identity, creating place.  Identity is essential for the success of a city and its cultural growth.
Identity :
As a shrinking post industrial city, rethinking the urban fabric of Detroit is an opportunity to respond to the technological advancements of today’s society.  There is  great potential for growth and development through the perhaps fragmented, yet existing pulse of Detroit.

Unlike many urban cities of the world, the identity of Detroit is a secret.

The pulse of Detroit is identified in three layers: the public, the private and the secret.

The public:

The cultural venues provide a foundation of values and identity which the people of Detroit instill in the next generation.  It is a historical base, a foundation which society has built over time.
The private:

Neighbourhoods and local business provide a strong foundation for the existing and new generations of Detroit.  They serve as beautiful places which make living in Detroit a wonderful experience.  It is important to consider the city dwellers as a pulse and the environment in which they live.

The secret:

The underground venues which are the root of the city and evolve with the culture.

All of these layers are important to the growth of development of the city.  This exploration is a search of allowing these layers to be revealed and discovered.  

In ‘The Overexposed City,’ Paul Virilio explains how in ‘the new perspective devoid of horizon, the city was entered not through a gate nor through an arc de triomphe, but rather through an electronic audience system.  Users of the road were no longer understood to be inhabitants or privileged residents.” 

The deteriorating human connections which Virilio discusses, in security driven airports and the design of the new ‘gateway’ to the city, are manifestations of the direction of human interaction. This deterioration is an opportunity to develop a new layer of human interaction. 

The entrance to Detroit’s secret identity could be created through a venue where human interaction is the engine, but driven by a detached electronic system.  Through technology, human interaction can be encouraged: the engine is started.  The driver is the technological system, providing a network for secret information to be shared without revealing the identity of the person.

“From here on, urban architecture has to work with the opening of a new technological space-time’.  In terms of access, telematics replaces the doorway.”  

The use of telematics in society creates a new means of sharing information.  The definition of time and space becomes arbitrary, indefinable as separate entities.  This leads to a capricious, intangible concept: space time.  It creates an opportunity to use technology as a mode of communication, revealing the pulses in an intangible, secret manner.