Detroit, Michigan
2019

Like too many neighborhoods in Detroit, Core City bears abandoned expanses of a depopulated landscape. But lo and behold the developer-client, in his first introductory sentence said, “I want to think of Core City as a park.”  He described his desire to celebrate the openness (versus vacancy) to advocate for a new way of living in Detroit in the future. With the challenge of being in a commercial setting this small inaugural park was to be inclusive, to old and new Detroiters.

A derelict parking lot, a dense 1000-foot square, was once home to Engine House No.12.  The site is bounded by three two- and one-story former industrial buildings, thousands like them strewn across Detroit. The strategy for construtcting the ground of the park was risky: just dig. It paid off.  Up came beautiful chunks of red sandstone, ecstatic reactions erupting when the cornerstone inscribed ‘1893’ was hoisted into the air. The process of extraction and then the addition of an urban canopy ensued, all tucked in by crushed black slag, a local by-product of steelmaking. Imagine this:  generous developers who believe in the power of the landscape to both bolster their commercial enterprises but, equally important, bestow signs of optimism in forgotten neighborhoods.

Clients + Collaborators

Philip Kafka, president, Prince Concepts; Randy Pardy, project manager, Prince Concepts; Ish Rafiuddin, architect, undecorated; Lincoln MacKensie, Mack Landscaping

Kudos

Landscape Architecture Magazine, feature cover, October 2020

BURIED TREASURE: Engine House No. 12 was razed in the 1970s which meant a lot of good stuff was pushed into the basement.

SIGN OF OPTIMISM: In Core City, like many neighborhoods in Detroit, the landscape is open and fallow waiting for signs of regrowth.

REMADE FOREST: Simple. Unearth and expose the former industrial ground. Open it up to accept an urban woodland. [Photo: Prince Concepts]

MIRACULOUS: The day the cornerstone of the Engine House was hoisted from the depths.

GIFT OF TIME: The cornerstone was simply laid on the ground, bestowing 126 years upon the park.

DRAWING FULL SCALE: Client and collaborator Philip Kafka and JB feel out the lime green outline of future terraces.

DRAWING ONLY AS NEEDED: Recording the plan as it emerged, containers initially defining the edge along the busy thoroughfare.

”DESIGN” IS THERE: Just find it.

BAM BAM, THE LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR: Holes in the existing concrete were bashed to carve pits for the Honey Locusts and Flowering Dogwoods.

BLACK BEAUTY: A nickname for local slag used as a continuous, path-less ground plane.

FIRE ENGINE RED: Excavated sandstone is puzzled together for terraces amongst found concrete expanses, repurposed brick and black slag. [Photo: Prince Concepts]

BIG SLABS: A perfect place for cawfee tawk, the hefty benches sawcut from a vault inside a nearby building. [Photo: Prince Concepts]

SOLO CUP: The grove has become a retreat for ‘new’ and ‘old Detroiters,’ one neighbor at a time. [Photo: Prince Concepts]