|
|
 |
UM Detroit Center
The University of Michigan is playing an active and visible role in the redevelopment of the American city by establishing its Detroit Center in the heart of that major city. The new 12,000 square-foot UM Detroit Center occupies the ground floor of Orchestra Place on Woodward Avenue near downtown. The facility opens this fall and will provide a home for dozens of longstanding programs and research projects while also offering space for an increasing number of University programs involving Detroit citizens and organizations. The facility will provide offices and space for classes, meetings, exhibitions, lectures, and collaborative work while serving as a home base for students and faculty working on projects in Detroit.
"The University of Michigan was founded in Detroit in 1817, and we have remained committed and connected to this city," said UM President Mary Sue Coleman, in introducing the center to the Detroit community. "Providing a home for our many Detroit projects in the heart of the city's cultural center makes us far more visible and accessible and enables us to be a part of its revitalization. We look forward to the way this center will strengthen the partnership between UM and Detroiters."
The UM's Office of the Provost has provided strong support by funding half the cost of the center. The remaining amount is shared by 17 UM units: the Schools of Art and Design, Education, Information, Natural Resources and Environment, Public Health, Nursing, and Social Work; the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Ford School of Public Policy, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the College of Engineering, the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, UM Dearborn, the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and the Residential College.
Previously, University faculty, students, and staff have commuted from Ann Arbor to work on projects without the benefits of a central headquarters within the city. The lack of academic workspace in Detroit has also made it difficult for UM to share information with Detroiters about the broad spectrum of University activities that transpire in their city.
Examples of the kinds of programs that will be located in the Detroit Center include technology initiatives spearheaded by Associate Professor Larry Gant of the School of Social Work; the Detroit Design Charrette, in which our college annually brings 60 or more UM graduate students to the city for four to five days each January; and the Detroit Connections elementary school program organized by the School of Art and Design.
The Detroit Center stands at the confluence of the busy Mack Avenue/Martin Luther King Boulevard and Woodward Avenue corridors. The nearby area includes other educational institutions such as Wayne State University and the College for Creative Studies, as well as cultural resources like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Science Center, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. The center is situated next to Orchestra Hall, which expanded during the late 1990s by adding the Orchestra Place office building in which the UM Detroit Center is located. More recently, the site has seen the construction and opening of the Max M. Fisher Music Center and the city's new high school of the arts. The area is swiftly becoming a hub for education, entertainment, commercial, and cultural activity in Detroit.
The renovated space, which is leased from DSO, was laid out and designed by Bill
Grindatti,
B.S.'81, M.Arch.'83, under the guidance of Dean Kelbaugh. Signage and some of
the furniture was designed by Christian Unverzagt, B.S.'94,
lecturer in architecture, with assistance from Jennifer
Harmon, M.Arch.'05.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
