Detroit Architecture: Michigan Buildings

Detroit buildings news, Michigan architecture, American architectural designs, Hudson’s Site, US real estate architects

Detroit Architecture : Buildings

Architectural Developments in Michigan, USA – American Urban Design in MI.

post updated February 27, 2024

Detroit Architecture News on e-architect:

Detroit Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York’s SHoP Architects and Detroit’s Hamilton Anderson Associates partner to transform the site formerly occupied by Hudson’s Department Store.

We bring you news from the Hudson’s Site, Detroit’s tallest ground-up skyscraper construction in 50 years. It will be topping out a few weeks from now in a real-world parallel of the rebirth the city has undergone recently.

Hudson’s Site Detroit skyscraper building design:
Hudson’s Site Detroit skyscraper Gratiot
image courtesy of architects practice

So named for its location on the former J.L. Hudson’s Department Store site, this tower is a modern reinterpretation of the Chicago School architectural icon that once drew residents and visitors downtown for shopping, dining, and entertainment.

Hudson’s Site Detroit skyscraper Woodward building:
Hudson’s Site Detroit skyscraper Woodward building
image courtesy of architects practice

The new Hudson’s will rise 685 feet high on a 9-story pediment  and include more than 1.5 million square feet of retail, office, residential, hotel, and event space.

Designed through a collaboration between NYC-based SHoP Architects and Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson Associates, the building will be centered around a large new civic square meant to evoke the “gathering place” that the old Hudson’s represented.

Hudson’s Site Detroit Woodward tower design:
Hudson’s Site Detroit Woodward tower design
image courtesy of architects practice

A glass and steel exterior puts a modern spin on the ornate facades of Detroit’s glory days, and floor-to-ceiling windows at upper levels give occupants- and diners- unparalleled views of the city that include Bedrock’s recent $400 million adaptive-reuse restoration of Book Tower.

The architectural team for this reinvented Detroit icon are Bedrock, SHoP, and HAA.

Hudson’s Site Detroit Grand River design:
Hudson’s Site Detroit Grand River design
image courtesy of architects practice

One of Detroit’s most prominent vacant sites, created by the implosion of the Hudson’s building in 1998.

See our previous post on this CBD project: Hudson’s Site in Downtown Detroit

Location: Grand River and Gratiot, Central Business District

Site area: two acres

Developer: Rock Ventures

Jan 2, 2023
Floyd Library, Detroit, MI, USA
Design: M1DTW Architects
Floyd Library Detroit Michigan
photos : Diana Paulson and Nev Muftari
Floyd Library, Detroit
Following the 2018 construction of, Floyd Library, a multi-use headquarters and showroom for the sustainably-oriented furniture startup Floyd, M1DTW returned to redesign its interior to meet changing conditions of workplace activity.

Detroit Building News 2014 – 2020

Nov 8, 2020
Whiting Forest of Dow Gardens, Midland
Design: Metcalfe Architecture & Design, LLC
Whiting Forest of Dow Gardens in Midland, Michigan
photo : Nic Lehoux
Whiting Forest of Dow Gardens, Midland
Comprising a dynamic network of bridges, paths, and tree canopy walkways that are populated with engaging gathering points and interactive features, Metcalfe’s design offers a close-up, four-season experience throughout the 54-acre forest of native northern pine from a variety of unexpected vantage points.

Oct 9, 2020
YAC Detroit Waterfront District Competition
Detroit Waterfront District Competition YAC
image courtesy of organisers
Detroit Waterfront District Competition
This architecture contest invites creatives to design a new skyline, solving urban void overlooking the river amid downtown skyscrapers

Oct 1, 2020
Glass Mural
Design: MVRDV
Glass Mural Detroit Michigan
photo : MVRDV
Glass Mural Detroit
The Netherlands-based architecture and design firm MVRDV has released details about Glass Mural, a one-of-a-kind, four-story office and retail building located in Detroit’s beloved Eastern Market neighborhood.

Jan 15, 2019
Gordie Howe International Bridge

Jul 15, 2018
Beacon Park Lumen Restaurant, Grand River Avenue
Design: Touloukian Touloukian Inc.
Beacon Park Lumen Restaurant
photo courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum
Beacon Park Lumen Restaurant
The Beacon Park and restaurant building, situated along Grand River Avenue, welcomes visitors into the center of downtown Detroit.

Apr 18, 2018
Detroit West Riverfront Park International Landscape Competition News
The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy has selected Michael Van Valkenburgh and David Adjaye of Adjaye/Associates as the winners of a $50-million competition to redesign a 22-acre park along the Detroit River.

The proposal’s centerpiece a beach within a cove protected by a jetty that juts diagonally into the waterway.

Detroit West Riverfront Park landscape design:
Detroit West Riverfront Park landscape design
image courtesy Michael Van Valkenburgh

The site is part of the Conservancy’s plan for a five and a half-mile stretch of waterfront west of Belle Isle to the Ambassador Bridge. The land contains former factories and rail yards abandoned as Detroit collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013.

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, which builds and manages the RiverWalk, announced Tuesday April 10th, 2018 that it has selected Brooklyn-based Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to design the 22-acre west riverfront park in Detroit.

The park is estimated to cost $50 million, with the money to be raised through donations, and it should be finished in four to five years.

Detroit West Riverfront Park design
image courtesy Michael Van Valkenburgh

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has been working with the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy for the last decade on a plan for the East Riverfront District, and 80 percent of that 3-and-a-half mile framework is complete. The West Riverfront Park will supplement it.

In 2017 the Conservancy selected four design teams of architects and landscape architects as finalists, to present proposals in a public forum and exhibition—part of a long process in which the local community participated.

Each team included standard water-related features for revived waterfront sites—boardwalks, piers, docks, beaches, as well as kayaking and fishing facilities. All emphasized the need to relate the river and the city to one another.

Detroit West Riverfront Park landscape
image courtesy Michael Van Valkenburgh

Designs were by:

– GGN (Seattle), with Rossetti
– Hood Design Studio and West 8 with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (NYC)
– James Corner Field Operations with nArchitects

Aug 28, 2017
Monroe Blocks Detroit
Design: Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
Monroe Blocks
image from architect
Monroe Blocks Development
Located at the center of the spokes that connect greater Detroit, this new development will make an impact far beyond its surrounding context, it will become a destination, an icon for the future development of Detroit. The new development will combine downtown Detroit’s first high-rise office tower in a generation with over 480 residential units.

May 4, 2016
Detroit’s Proposed MLS Stadium & District
Design: ROSSETTI
Detroit MLS Stadium & District Roof
image from architect
Detroit MLS Stadium & District
The development, designed by ROSSETTI and proposed by Rock Ventures and Platinum Equity, will mark the main entry point to downtown Detroit, forming a welcoming gateway to the city at the intersection of I-375 and Gratiot.

Apr 13, 2015
Detroit will be a Trendy City
Architectural Column Vol. III, Number 2 by Joel Solkoff, PA, USA
Detroit will be a Trendy City
photograph courtesy Detroit Future City
Detroit Architecture Article
A 350 page master plan is guiding the new Detroit. The shape? Unclear but promising.

Apr 19, 2014
Reanimate The Ruins Architecture Contest
Reanimate The Ruins Competition
image courtesy of architecture contest organiser
Detroit Architecture Competition
Detroit, once the fourth largest city in America and Michigan’s primary Metropolis, has recently filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States.

Detroit Architecture

There are many great buildings in Detroit. Lafayette Park by Mies van der Rohe, an amazing urban redevelopment, the first of it’s kind in the nation.

Also the Guardian building, Fisher Theater, One Detroit Center, a Philip Johnson design, One Woodward Avenue, a Yamasaki Design.

Eero Saarinen and Albert Kahn had an influence on Detroit, probably the two that influenced the city’s architecture the most.

Nov 26, 2013
Hudson’s Site, Downtown Detroit – Development on Woodward Avenue
Design: SHoP Architects with Hamilton Anderson Associates (HAA)
Hudson’s Site, Downtown Detroit
photo : Ray Rushing, Rock Ventures
Hudson’s Site, Downtown Detroit
Rock Ventures select SHoP Architects as the architect of record to lead the design process for the 2-acre site of the former Hudson’s Department Store in downtown Detroit. Headquartered in NYC, SHoP will partner with Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson Associates (HAA) to create an innovative concept for a signature development on Woodward Avenue in the heart of Detroit’s Central Business District bordered by Gratiot, Grand River and Library Street.

Feb 20, 2013
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit – MOCAD, Michigan, USA
Rice+Lipka Architects + James Corner Field Operations
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit - MOCAD
picture : Rice+Lipka Architects
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) is pleased to announce that the redesign of the museum and its grounds by Rice+Lipka Architects and James Corner Field Operations, has been selected as the 2013 winner of The Architectural Review Future Projects Award for the category of “Old & New” and honored with a special mention in the Architizer A+ Awards for the “Architecture +Urban Transformation” category.

Jul 27, 2009
Rosa Parks Transit Center
Parsons Brinckerhoff, architects
Rosa Parks Transit Center Detroit | www.e-architect.com
photo : David Sailors
Rosa Parks Transit Center
Located at Michigan and Cass Avenues, the Rosa Parks Transit Center is a 25,000-square-foot indoor facility with over two acres of exterior transit access. It enables customers to make connections to 21 DDOT bus routes, the SMART suburban bus system, Transit Windsor for international connections, and taxi access in a single downtown transportation hub.

Detroit Architect – design studio listing

Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA

Architecture in Detroit

Detroit Architecture Designs – chronological list

Detroit is located in the Midwest portion of the United States and is part of a larger band of cities known as the Rust Belt which have gone through a process of decline over the past decades.

Michigan Buildings

American Architects – by City

Boston Architects

Chicago Architects

Cincinnati Architect

Los Angeles Architect

Miami Architect

New York Architect

San Francisco Architect

Seattle Architects

Michigan Buildings

Michigan Architecture Designs – selection:

Lake Michigan Getaway, Bridgeman
Design: Scrafano Architects
Lake Michigan Getaway Bridgeman MI
photograph : Ryan Hainey
Lake Michigan Getaway, Bridgeman MI

Van Andel Institute – Phase 2, Grand Rapids
Design: Rafael Vinoly Architects
Van Andel Institute Building

Michigan House

American Architecture – Selection

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas
Santiago Calatrava
Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

Farnsworth House, Plano
Mies van der Rohe
Farnsworth House

American Architects

New York Architecture

Additions for the Detroit Architecture – Michigan Built Environment page welcome.