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Garden entry from Woodward Avenue. Two large windows offer views from Detroit's main artery into MOCAD's art spaces.
2/12
Indoor+outdoor cafe at east garden. Elevated structure provides visual anchor for new entry & protects outdoor area for cafe.
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Section drawing of urban-scaled, deep-framed windows with integrated seat that help connect MOCAD's galleries to Woodward Avenue.
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Gallery 1 looking north. The raw gallery character is preserved and enhanced with new large viewing windows that visually open the gallery to Woodward Avenue.
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Rooftop art & events terrace looking south. Elevated outdoor program space surrounded by tall grasses with view of downtown Detroit.
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Component axonometric. The independent rooftop pavilion structure frames a new southern entry and Culture Hub below. New perimeter signage & windows add to the accumulated character that gives MOCAD its distinctive character.
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Logics of concept design. Reorienting the museum to integrate with garden, solar orientation and urban circulation routes.
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9/12
Welcome desk from the Culture Hub. New refined interior elements contrast with the raw industrial shed.
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Culture Hub with cafe and open stair to new exhibition space above. The new indoor/outdoor colonnade provides spatial definition for the event space while maintaining the rich character of the existing shed.
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South outdoor art+event space with landscaped bleachers. Public threshold links Woodward with Garfield, Midtown Loop & Sugar Hill Walkway. © R+L & JCFO
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Culture Hub. New colonnade overlaps the building's southeast corner providing definition for MOCAD's robust indoor/outdoor events.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART DETROIT

Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI

MOCAD, a collaboration with landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, re­envisions the museum's Albert Kahn-designed industrial shed building and exterior surrounds as an expanded cultural center that opens up to and fully engages the surrounding community. RL+JCFO's design and masterplan, based on the acquisition of adjacent property just to the museum's south (now a parking lot), provides a refreshed identity, reconceptualized program and new organization for MOCAD. In a seeming paradox, the project seeks be completely transformative, even as it preserves MOCAD's raw, industrial edge.

The project includes new and expanded museum entry, exhibition & event spaces, cafe, support & administrative functions, as well as generous outdoor art & event spaces that open directly onto Woodward Avenue for the first time. The new vision for infrastructure and grounds will work to invigorate MOCAD's already robust music & arts programming and community engagement, and position the museum as an energetic catalyst for the resurgence of Midtown. Project funded by a LINC/Ford Foundation Space for Change grant.

Winner of the New York State Design Award of Excellence, Architectural Review Future Projects Award, & Architizer A+ Awards Special Mention: Architecture+Urban Transformation. Included in the exhibition Rough Cuts, Syracuse Architecture/Syracuse University.

Rice+Lipka Architects
Principals: Lyn Rice & Astrid Lipka
Associate: Benjamin Cadena
Project Team: Patrick Burke, Simon Ng, Jordan Prosser, Xin Wu

Landscape: James Corner Field Operations
Structural: Silman
Civil: SmithGroup/JJR

Design Completed 2011.