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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills on Tuesday to re-establish the state’s first and only Historically Black College or University (HBCU). The former Lewis College of Business is slated to reopen as the Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design in 2022. It was originally founded in Indianapolis in 1928 before relocating to Detroit in 1939 where it operated until closing in 2013. — Detroit Metro Times
This will make it the first HBCU to close and then successfully reopen. Plans for the school’s reopening were announced several months ago, however, Governor Whitmer’s signing of House Bill 5447 and 5448 has made this effort a reality. The school will operate on the College for Creative... View full entry
An excellent example of the New Formalist style is now available for the relatively low price of $4.3 million. Local news outlets are reporting the recent addition of Minoru Yamasaki’s Michigan State Medical Society to the real estate market in East Lansing. Image courtesy Michigan State... View full entry
Detroit, Michigan’s erstwhile Lewis College of Business is making history after being resurrected by one of the biggest names in footwear and apparel design. The college operated from 1928 to 2013 before shuttering due to financial concerns and will now become the nation’s first HBCU to... View full entry
A private residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has hit the auction block in St. Joseph, Michigan, joining a host of other Wright homes that have entered the real estate market in the past year alone. Listed just shy of $2 million, the Harper House was last seen for sale 25 years ago and... View full entry
With school shootings becoming a point of concern for many across the country, K-12 design methodologies are beginning to address the issue as well. Fruitport High School in Fruitport, Michigan, for example, is undergoing a $48 million renovation project aimed at incorporating some of these... View full entry
Recognized as a UNESCO City of Design in 2015, Detroit has dedicated time and effort to help the city grow and thrive. This year, Design Core Detroit launched its first edition of the Detroit City of Design Competition. The international and multi-disciplinary competition invites... View full entry
Emily Helen Butterfield, born August 4, 1884, was the first licensed woman architect in Michigan. Butterfield grew up in Detroit with a love of watercolor painting, and eventually studied architecture at Syracuse University, where she was a founding member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority... View full entry
The United States Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has unveiled its annual list of "highway boondoggles," a list of "budget-eating highway projects" that will "harm communities and the environment, while likely failing to achieve meaningful transportation goals." The proposed North Houston... View full entry
In response to the ongoing toxicity crisis gripping the town of Flint, Michigan, 2020 Democratic presidential contender Julián Castro has unveiled a nationwide lead abatement plan. Last week, Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Barack Obama, became the first... View full entry
If Michigan isn’t the first place that comes to mind when considering [the Modern era] — unlike, say, Germany or France in the 1920s — it should be. The presence of Ford in the city and Booth in the country was enough to make Michigan ground zero for the Modernist experiment [...] making the state home to perhaps the most diverse and best-preserved collection of early Modernist experiments in the world. — The New York Times
A look at Michigan's history in the Modernist movement and the story it tells for our future. M.H. Miller traces three main convergences in the state: Henry Ford's first Model T factory, the Cranbrook school's presence, and numerous influential architects most notably Albert Kahn and Minoru... View full entry
More details on Ford's adaptive reuse of Michigan Central Station reveal that Snøhetta has been commissioned as the lead designer as part of Ford's $1 billion capital improvements project. Tasked with re-envisioning the company's Headquarters and Research Campus in Dearborn, Michigan, the firm... View full entry
Yesterday, Ford Motor Company announced its long-rumored plan to buy the abandoned Michigan Central Station and restore it as hub for its future mobility ventures. The news quickly created a sense of awe across metro Detroit. [...]
On Tuesday morning, Ford laid out the details and made the purchase official in a public ceremony.
— The Verge
Rumors about Ford's intentions to purchase the iconic but dilapidated Michigan Central Station first surfaced in March, and now it's official: the automaker ('scuse me, mobility company) celebrated the announcement with a festive party on its new property hosting performers and city officials... View full entry
The Cranbrook Academy of Art announced today that Gretchen Wilkins will be the new Head of the Architecture Department and the institution's ninth Architect-in-Residence. Amy Green Deines, the dean of Cranbrook Academy, praised Wilkins as “a collaborative leader with strong connections and a... View full entry
An 800-foot-tall centerpiece is coming to Detroit's resurgent downtown as the city continues to build momentum about three years after exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. — Chicago Tribune
Detroit continues its steep climb back to normalcy and growth. As one of America's hardest-hit areas by the Great Recession, Detroit unemployment was running nearly three times as high as the national average in 2009 at a staggering 28 percent — and the city was bleeding population, losing... View full entry
“I try to be the face that I was looking for growing up,” Brown said. “So if I go into a room or an auditorium and just one person is interested in architecture, then I’ve accomplished my mission.”
The name comes from a milestone this past August, when the 400th African-American woman became licensed as an architect. There are 110,000 licensed architects in the country.
— Michigan Radio
Raised in Detroit, architectural designer Tiffany Brown won a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge grant for her project “400 Forward”, which aims to bring in more black girls and women into the field of architecture and urban planning. According to Brown, only 0.3 percent of U.S. architects are black... View full entry
