Agence Ter, Akoaki, Rootoftwo, Etienne

Designers: Jonathan Watkins, Berta Garriga, Pilar Llop

Team of 8 Assistants from Taubman College

The ambition of Detroit Square is to produce a cultural district that unifies 12 disparate institutions, honoring each institutions own logics, agendas, plans, aspirations, and dilemmas. The Project consists of five primary elements

THE SQUARE: Unifies and creates programmatic affordances, the square is a linear plaza that equitably links all institutions.

THE ECOTONE: The ecotone offers a zone for lush vegetation, storm water stewardship, and biodiversity.

THE BAND: Unifying the cultural district along an east-west green, the band creates two adaptive plazas for large-scale events.

THE NECKLACE: A network of pedestrian pathways which together link the institutions.

THE TRANSFORMER: Transformer provides a flexible platform for artists, cultural institutions and the public to engage with LED controllable lighting, sound, and projection mapping.

Akoaki

Principals: Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Designers: Jonathan Watkins
Assistance from: Morgan Stackman

The Landing is a dual programed building that will serve as the central node for the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm in Detroit. Under the direction of Principles Anya Sirota and Jean Louis Faragas I produced the schematic design.

The building will feature a community center on the first floor in addition to a small hostel  that occupies the second and third floors. The project is a extensive redesign and renovation of an existing two family Detroit home. The building will feature a large kitchen and meeting room that will serve as the central operational space for the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm. The second floor will have space for five guests; consisting of single and shared rooms. The design features a double height space connecting the second and third floors. Additional design features include: The removal of the back of the house which will be replaced with a semi-transparent facade. The Landing will also be a test project for a new type of insulation, that is to utilize vacuumed air gaps and attempt to provide a high R value while maintaining a cost per square foot similar to polycarbonate siding.   

Akoaki

Principals: Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Designers: Jonathan Watkins
Assistance from: Megan Mohney, Chris Camble, Morgan Stackman 

The Master plan for the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm was developed simultaneously with the building of a 15’ x 20’ site model. The plan is a response to the urban farm’s intention to develop into a holistically defined sustainable cultural and agricultural institution. Leading a team of seven interns under the direction of principal Anya Sirota, I designed, digital modeled, and fabricated a physical model which serves as the vision of the Oakland Avenue Urban Farms. Each component of the plan; commercial space, productive landscape, wilderness and cultural space, supports the other components of the farm.

The model is intended as a vision for the future of the North End of Detroit. The context buildings, which are projective, foresee the building of new construction. The project positions The Oakland Urban Farm as a “central park”, maintaining its function as a productive cultural center and preserving a portion of Detroit's history which was threatened with becoming lost. of the city underwent an extreme loss.

Akoaki

Designer: Jonathan Watkins

Assistance from: Freddy Foote, Sarah Carter, and Jordan Laugriara

The Architecture League of New York awarded Anya Sirota and Akoaki the league prize. The premises of the 2018 competition, “Objective” lead us to understand the previous ten years of work as a single epoch.

The design of these models consisted of enveloping a welded tripod system that telescoped into a rolled steel basket. The basket is essentially a cylindrical section cut and is unrolled to match the inset model.

Akoaki

Principals: Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Designers: Jonathan Watkins
Assistance from: Morgan Stackman

Night Fever Model, Produced for the Vitra Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; Exhibition: “Night Fever. Designing Club Culture 1960 – Today” 17/03/2018 – 09/09/2018 , is a representation of 3 complete projects produced by Akoaki from 2014 to 2017. Each of these projects (the Mothership, the Funkestra stage, and the Arch) are examples of a ‘new’ genre of nightlife. The night life represented in this project is ephemeral and detached from static architectural objects. The model frames each project within a ‘Detroit Wilderness’ that emphasizes the transitory nature of nightlife in the city.

The model is  6.5’ long and 16” deep. Designed to fit within a pre-constructed vatrine. Given the restriction on depth, the model utilizes both a perspectival drawing and aluminum  slices to create a sense of architectural place. The model will initially be displayed at the Vitra Museum, and will then continue to be exhibited in europe through 2019.

Akoaki

Principals: Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Designers: Jonathan Watkins, Samantha Okolita
Assistance from: Lindsy Karasik

The Detroit Cultural Council is a multi year project whose goals aim to reinvigorate the Detroit Arts Council,which had been dormant from 2004-2017 . It has been displayed twice; (1) O.N.E. mile garage, Detroit, Michigan and (2) Biennale International Design Saint Etienne, France from March 9th to April 9th 2017 as part of the UNESCO detroit city of design exhibition. The design issue for the Cultural Council was twofold; (1) create a space/structure/object that enables participation from multiple, highly differentiated, cultural actors, and (2) create an institutional space for an institution that must re-establish itself.. The Threshold, or Arch, presents as a solution to the two-fold design issue. The ‘golden’ Arch creates two spaces by attaching itself to an existing structure, taking advantage of the preexisting presence of a conditioned space. From a distance the Arch signifies both Art Deco and Egyptian styles. These motifs were chosen for their relation to two Detroit futurist movements, the aforementioned Art Deco movement and  the AfroFuturism movement. The Arch temporarily institutionalized the space in which it is installed.