Photo courtesy hudsons.opportunitydetroit.com The site of the former Hudson's department store in Detroit. SHoP Architects and Hamilton Anderson Associates have been tapped to come up with concepts for a new building there. One of Detroit’s most iconic sites will be the subject of an intense design concept study in coming months, headed by New York’s ShoP Architects. Photo courtesy historicdetroit.org/Detroit Free Press Archives The former Hudson's department store. The focus will be on the site of the old Hudson’s department store, which for decades in mid-20th century reigned as Detroit’s most important shopping locale. The store dated to 1891 and

The social impacts of urban redesign was a key theme of the 2013 Bruner Loeb Forum in Detroit. Photo courtesy J. Max Bond Center From left to right: Sally Young, Loeb Fellowship; Nicholas Hamilton, The American Assembly; Esther Yang, J. Max Bond Center; Anne-Marie Lubenau, Bruner Foundation; Jim Stockard, Loeb Fellowship; Toni Griffin, J. Max Bond Center; Simeon Bruner, Bruner Foundation; Dan Pitera and Krista Wilson, Detroit Collaborative Design Center; and David Mortimer, The American Assembly The fine art of reimagining what post-industrial cities can become through better design took the spotlight last week at the 2013 Bruner Loeb Forum,

Photo © Credit In the long-empty buildings ofthe Motor City's manufacturing past, technology firms are shaping new workspaces for the 21st-century. Detroit's well-publicized bout with municipal bankruptcy is masking some positive trends taking place in the teetering city. Among the most important: technology firms are flocking to its downtown core, bringing an influx of young workers and remaking many of its older 20th-century buildings into high-tech havens. From two- or three-person startups to mortgage giant Quicken Loans, companies of all sizes have set up shop in long-neglected structures. Some are embracing the gritty industrial buildings by preserving rugged finishes, taking

Back to Technology and the City « In the long-empty buildings of the Motor City's manufacturing past, technology firms are shaping new workspaces for the 21st century. Detroit's well-publicized bout with municipal bankruptcy is masking some positive trends taking place in the teetering city. Among the most important: technology firms are flocking to its downtown core, bringing an influx of young workers and remaking many of its older 20th-century buildings into high-tech havens. From two- or three-person startups to mortgage giant Quicken Loans, companies of all sizes have set up shop in long-neglected structures. Some are embracing the gritty industrial

Image courtesy MVVA A team led by MVVA won the competition to design the grounds surrounding Gateway Arch. Click on the slide show button below to see schemes by all five finalists. Related Links: Shortlist for Gateway Arch Competition Announced Saarinen's Gateway Arch Celebrated in Documentary Design Competition to Enliven St. Louis Arch Park In the 1960s, when the Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway Arch in St. Louis was built, the work created an American icon as recognizable as the Statue of Liberty. But plans never materialized to develop the surrounding grounds into a fully accessible public site, leaving the Arch isolated

A last-minute rescue effort has saved from destruction the company archives of famed mid-century modernist Minoru Yamasaki. The records, which include work related to the Yamasaki-designed World Trade Center towers in New York and numerous other projects, are now preserved in the State of Michigan Archives in the state capital in Lansing. Photo courtesy State of Michigan Archives World Trade Center rendering Click on the slide show icon to see additional photos. Related Links: A Once Eminent Firm Meets a Bitter End Born in Seattle, Yamasaki (1912-1986) moved to Detroit in 1945 to work for the firm of Smith, Hinchman

Roughly a year behind its original schedule, the Zaha Hadid-designed Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum will break ground on March 16 on the East Lansing campus of Michigan State University. When finished in 2012, it will be the second Hadid-designed building in the United States, after the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Image courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects Click on the slide show icon to see additional photos. Related Links: Hadid Tapped for MSU Museum Fire Erupts at Hadid Opera House Hadid Chosen for Vienna Library Hadid First Woman to Win Pritzker The

The legacy firm of famed Midcentury Modernist Minoru Yamasaki has closed its doors amid a sea of recriminations and debts.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Palmer House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, acclaimed by historians as one of the architect’s best residential projects, has been put up for sale by the family of the original owners.

Michigan State University (MSU) has picked Zaha Hadid Architects to design its new $26-million Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, in East Lansing, Michigan, school officials announced today. Hadid’s selection emerged from a competition that began last June and had narrowed to five firms, including Morphosis, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Randall Stout Architects. Joseph Giovannini chaired the selection committee. Images courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects Michigan State University has selected Zaha Hadid's design for its new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum (top). Her design calls for a sharply angular, low-slung horizontal three-story building with a glass and aluminum