Project
The Community's Chamber of The Blue Frontier
Category
Best Project of Public Space by Student
About the project
Detroit, known as the ‘Motor City’, used to be the centre of capitalism in the U.S before the second world war. The city underwent a process of deindustrialization and suburbanization that leads to a 'void city' with high poverty rates and homelessness. Government and social organizations work together to build the cities slowly through the development of affordable homes and green public spaces.
The vision of this project is to reactivate the Detroit River which used to be the main waterline connection for goods distribution and marine tourism, by designing a master plan that embodied social community in the Rivertown area. Outlined by 3 basic principles, namely “We Live Here, We Produce Here, We Distribute Here”, the master plan consists of social houses, urban farms, orchard farms, fish farms, retail and market with distinctive riverfront commercial and green promenade. Together, it will create a circle of life for people to live, work, play, study, collaborate with each other.
Location
East Jefferson Avenue, East Rivertown, Detroit (close to Mac Arthur Bridge), Michigan, the USA
Project design year
2020
Project website
https://www.coroflot.com/felixhalim/THE-COMMUNITYS-CHAMBER-OF-THE-BLUE-FRONTIER-MA-Architecture-and-Urbanism-Final-Project-2020
More project images
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hvfWVD5aJmtGZA258bfn-I0u5hPFhsAz?usp=sharing
Project video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvoeEf0iCiU
Additional information
‘The Community’s Chamber of the Blue Frontier’ is my final design thesis project in Architecture and Urbanism of MSA. I was part of the MSA student’s research group of Manchester Detroit, who interested in the homelessness issue that both cities have experienced. Therefore, Detroit is my case study in solving problems of the related issue. The project can be found on MSA Architecture & Urbanism 2020 official website.
https://www.msa.ac.uk/2020/profile/felix-halim/
Applicant and authors of the project
Felix Halim.
Freelance architect from Indonesia who prioritises typology as his design method. Through typology, he tested a range of massing configurations for experimental projects, arranged differently to compose various complexes to promote integration with the landscape, public space and humanity. He recently graduated from Manchester School of Architecture — Architecture and Urbanism field, University of Manchester in 2020.