Research, Outreach, and Funding / Detroit Community Design Center
Taubman College's Community Design Center is within the University of Michigan's Detroit Center, Taubman College helped spearhead. At the northern end of the facility, the college occupies 1,000 square feet of high bay studio space. It is equipped with desks/workstations and a faculty office. Craig Wilkins, the 2004 Sojourner Truth Professor of Urban Planning, is director of the community workshop, which offers low and no-cost planning and design services to community and neighborhood groups and organizations. Eric Dueweke, the College Outreach Coordinator, worked with Craig Wilkins and spends several days a week at the center.
The ultimate range and type of community service, teaching, and research that will happen in or be supported by the center are still in gestation and will evolve over the next several years. Architecture, urban design, and urban planning studios use the facility. Local high school students are also offered design classes. Community workshops and meetings are held there, as will symposia and seminars. Researchers often use it as a home, and students use it as a base for their collective and individual needs. It is also hoped and envisioned that interdisciplinary work and activity will naturally emerge with the other UM schools, colleges, and programs located at the center. All in all, the center is quickly becoming a useful and vibrant hub of education, collaboration, and service in Detroit.
Please feel free to stop by and visit both the UM Detroit Center and the college's Community Design Center. The address is 3663 Woodward Avenue, halfway between downtown and New Center. Stay tuned and watch this initiative germinate into numerous projects and programs.
