Since 1950, Detroit has lost over 50% of its population, 165,000 industrial jobs, and 147,000 housing units.  The depopulation that the city has experienced over the last sixty years created a fractured and dislocated urban environment divided by over 66,000 vacant lots.  Generated by default rather than intent, these discarded, neglected, and forgotten spaces evoke strong memories of past turmoil and abandonment within the city.  The project investigation uncovers the historic factors and city-responses associated with the extensive suburbanization and the subsequent emergence of urban empty space in Detroit.  Emphasizing the historic formation and strange identity of Detroit's vacant land becomes the design measure in which to re-imagine and regenerate these urban conditions.