Save this picture! Courtesy of Davide Marchetti Architetto

Davide Marchetti Architetto shared with us his first prize winning proposal, titled ‘Minicity Detroit,’ for the Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site competition. Utilizing the surrounding urban fabric as the generator for a new vision of the city, their concept directly responds to the site and its place in the city by bringing the existing physical form and history into the site. More image and architect’s description after the break.

Save this picture! Courtesy of Davide Marchetti Architetto

At the pedestrian level a new urban space is formed. It is conceived of as the extension of Woodward Avenue and provides a space for transition as well as an active urban core. Both above and below this elevated platform public event such as fairs, outdoor markets, music concerts and festivals are possible.

Save this picture! Courtesy of Davide Marchetti Architetto

These existing conditions provide a framework for renewal. The design pulls the existing urban grid into the site to generate the driving axes of the scheme, allowing for a merging of both the historic city and its potential as a new addition to the Woodward Avenue corridor.

The high-rises extrude from this framework in the industrial red brick style seen throughout Detroit and Merchant Row. Merging the historic architectural language of the city with renewal, they rise and insert themselves as a new architectural addition to the Detroit skyline.