Alteration. Acquiescence.

Abstract

Detroit was taken over by a human made virus composed of industrial withdraw, military strategy and political policy half a century earlier that has resulted in abandoned, dilapidated, burned and vacant buildings consuming the urban landscape. This virus continues to spread through violence, foreclosure and human necessity. All of which encourage the continued massive flight from Detroit. However what is more fascinating is not this consuming virus of urban decay but rather its host. The host is the people who have remained in the city either by choice or necessity, the people who have created lives for themselves within the urban fabric of destruction. People who wake up and do not merely bare witness to the destruction but rather live intertwined in a symbiotic relationship. And so the question, how do people coexist with decay, is put forth. What happens when the threads of urban decay penetrate the small scale? How does it affect a life from day to day? Is the decay engaged or ignored? How do people coexist with destruction next door? Within this relationship of host and urban virus an architectural intervention is sought to foster change in a community on the small scale. An intervention that does not have the concern of curing the virus of urban destruction at its forefront, but rather with enriching its counter point, its host, those who have remained.