Worldwide, dense urban spaces have been organized and transformed by cultural values. However, in many cases, changes in economic and social conditions have resulted in fragmentation of neighborhood typologies, in terms of their physical characteristics and uses. Such spaces are a manifestation of development, expansion, dislocation and marginalization; a condition that can be improved through an architectural and urban strategy which inscribes emerging forces into the neglected zones of marginal territories.

According to the United Nations 6, 29% of the worlds population was urban in 1950, 36% in 1965, 50% in 1990 and in 2025 it is expected to be 57.2% increasing to 69.6% by the year 2050. The average annual rate of change of the worlds population from 2005 to 2010 will be 2%. Between 2007 and 2050, the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 3.1 billion, increasing from 3.3 to 6.4 billion (www.un.org).

The contemporary context calls for a re-evaluation of public space. To fully engage the people, it is a necessary function of public space to blur landscape, architecture and infrastructure, as these three elements are rarely used in isolation. Public space can no longer be conceived as layers of these components of the built environment superimposed, but rather as an integrated network.

An Integrated Network Approach
-Urbanism
-Infrastructure
-Landscape
-Architecture

As an investigation of the environmental potential of existing urban areas, this thesis attempts to use an integrated network approach to create a local, social and cultural identity in a Detroit neighborhood.

By focusing on the important role the public realm plays within the urban landscape, the project creates a dialogue between the natural and built components of the urban realm by taking advantage of the potential of existing infrastructure, social factors and context.

The main focus of this thesis creates a design strategy that gives character and identity to an area of the city that has been fragmented as a result of recent changes in economic and social factors. The project achieves this by weaving nature into the urban fabric. The research in this thesis culminates in a project which identifies a marginal area in Detroit and suggests alternative uses for the surrounding spaces, giving emphasis to the natural component of the urban landscape as a tool to critique the re-appropriation of spaces that outlived their original vitality.

The concepts and findings from this thesis could be applied in any city towards the ecological reconditioning of marginal areas.

Strategies-Knots
Are defined by their exchange of resources which provide an exceptional gain to the neighborhood’s ecological, social and economic health and become a stronghold for the area. Knots become the new community catalysts where the existing sense of community is reinforced, providing jobs, self improvement opportunities and place.

-Strings
Are a user based network of foot, bike and rail corridors which provide an everyday infrastructure of connections. Creating connections between knots and neighborhood spaces. Being the main ground plane intervention, the strings create diverse landscape zones that mitigate contamination, visual aesthetics, public space and productive landscapes.

-Slips
Vacant lots are conceived both as the primary problem in this community and as an opportunity for intervention and improvement. Branching off the strings, the slips connect vacant lots, alleys and sidewalks creating a unique sequence of spaces and circulation, leading to civic and institutional uses, known as Pathways of Desire. These small scale programmatic interventions promote community within a neighborhood and serve as a teaching tool.

-Wedges
Are interventions which connect neighborhood edges to park areas, weaving nature into the city grid, with the possibility of an economic vibrant edge condition.

During the mid 1800s, the city began to experience a steady rise in shipping, building and manufacturing industries, bringing with it a rise in population; and leading to the founding of the Ford Motor Company by Henry Ford in 1903. At its peak in 1950, the city was the fourth largest in the country in population. But since then, it has experienced a major change of its population moving out to the suburbs. This settlement expansion was influenced by the automobile industry, as the cost of available land within the city was high, the land on the periphery was cheap and abundant, thus moving their operations and facilities out to the suburbs. In 2008, Detroit ranked as the nations eleventh most populous city, with 912,062 residents, less than half its peak.

Today, the citys land area stands at 139 square miles in which the three major cities of San Francisco, Boston and Manhattan can fit and still have extra space but the population is less than that of the three combined. As the U.S. automobile industry faced its decline, the population of the Motor City decreased leaving behind abandoned buildings, vacant lands and a city left for nature to reclaim.

The main idea of the thesis problem suggested that different scales of the design solutions needed to be addressed. At the city level, the creation of a network of linked knots that establishes a pattern for Detroit to change its direction into a more ecological pattern of shrinkage and evolution. This led to a strategy that gives character and identity to an area of the city that has been fragmented as a result of recent changes in economic and social factors. At the local scale, the use of slips to mediate the vacant lot issue in the neighborhood, the wedges to create a porous edge condition and the strings tie the community and knots together. Due to the scale of the project, the phasing strategies are devised to work at two levels (city and local) and on different but related time lines.

This thesis proposes a series of strategies to challenges faced by many cities world wide. As a response to the existing conditions in Detroit, this thesis makes use of the existing infrastructure, develops a productive landscape through the use of vacant lots, post-industrial land, and contaminated soils, and develops a shrinkage strategy. By focusing on the natural component of the urban fabric, this thesis recognizes the potential of areas that outlived their original vitality and gives hope to a resilient community by providing new jobs, new living conditions and a positive point of view to a tough reality.