The proposal to transform the Horace H. Rackham Educational Memorial Building advances an adaptive-reuse strategy that privileges openness, flexibility, and use over architectural finish. Drawing on low-cost, incremental renovation practices, the plan repositions the building as a raw, durable framework for interdisciplinary cultural production rather than a site of architectural spectacle.
Conceived as an experimental platform, the Rackham Building becomes a point of exchange between University of Michigan arts programming—UMMA, UMS, Taubman College, STAMPS, and the School of Theatre, Music, and Dance—and the broader Detroit Cultural District. Modest interventions prioritize spatial capacity, infrastructural readiness, and programmatic overlap, embedding collaboration as a structural condition rather than a curatorial gesture.
The proposal also acknowledges institutional tension. Venerable educational institutions often struggle with the appearance of the unfinished, equating completeness with authority and polish with power. This project argues otherwise. Repair, openness, and visible incompletion are framed not as weakness, but as institutional confidence—the capacity to evolve, adapt, and remain publicly accountable over time.
Within Detroit’s uneven urban landscape, the project positions Rackham as a stable civic anchor—bringing UM arts and culture into sustained dialogue with Detroit’s cultural institutions, artists, and publics. In this framework, the building operates less as a finished destination than as a continuously activated interior landscape, where educational, cultural, and civic practices intersect through necessity, proximity, and shared use.
2022
Midtown Detroit
Scale:
100,000 SF
Client:
The Detroit Cultural Center Association (DCCA)
Stakeholders:
University of Michigan
Principals:
Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Design Team:
Liz Feltz, Sarah Carter