AIA Huron Valley 2020 Awards Publication

The weathervane atop Lorch Hall is obviously a Viking ship.

Look closer: it also depicts the tools of artists and architects.

Lorch Hall Drawings, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan (cover/right) digital sketch by Kelsey Jensen

C O N T E N T | AWARDS 2020 AIA HV Board of Directors & President’s Comments

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PURE DESIGN: Emil Lorch, Architectural Education, and Michigan

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MINORU YAMASAKI’S Northwood Apartments at the University of Michigan

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2020 AIA HV Awards Submissions

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2020 AIA HV Awards Winners

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Thank you to our Sponsors

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(left) Sketches by Emil Lorch, Teaching Notes Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

A I A H U R O N V A L L E Y | 2019 Board of Directors Lindsey Suardini – President Don Barry – Vice President Joshua Hendershot – Past President Claude Faro – Secretary Anne Cox – Treasurer Adam Smith – Emerging Professionals Director Anna Anderson – Associate Membership Director Yao Ma – Media Director Theresa Angelini – Continuing Education Director Sharon Haar – TCAUP Director Tiannuo Ouyang – AIAS Representative Chuck Bultman – AIA Michigan Director

Editorial Board Bradford Angelini – Managing Editor Don Barry – Executive Editor Kelsey Jensen – Art Director Sadashiv Mallya – Consulting Editor Martin Schwartz – Editorial Director

2020 Awards Jury – Hayward Babineaux, Associate AIA, NOMA, Byce & Associates Bill LaDitka, NCARB, LEED AP, Principal Architect, Intersect Studio Thomas Lowing, Associate Professor, Andrews University Kristopher Nelson, AIA, LEED AP, President, Schley Nelson Architects

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A I A H U R O N V A L L E Y | President Greetings, On behalf of the 2019 Board of Directors of the Huron Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, we are pleased to present the third edition of our annual publication: AWARDS. This publication was originally conceived in 2017 and continues to document and celebrate impactful architecture within communities and beyond. In particular, and as part of the awards program rubric this year, the board is excited to highlight the environmental, social, and economic issues that this chapter’s body of work is currently addressing through thoughtful architecture and design.

This year’s Honor Award Winners include exceptional achievements in residential and commercial design. We are also proud that this publication features 21 entries from 13 different firms, which continues to demonstrate the unique collection of exceptional designers within our region.

The two articles included in this publication highlight the unique and impactful public housing project of Minoru Yamasaki and the history of one of our region’s most influential modernists, Emil Lorch. The feature on Yamasaki will draw you in on the process of creating diverse accommodations and unique experiences for residents.

Additionally, the background information on Emil Lorch’s ambitious vision will surely be inspiring.

We also have several individual achievements that we would like to celebrate this year. Heather Graham Lewis is receiving the Eugene Hopkins award for her service and dedication to our profession. Likewise, Bradford Angelini is being honored with the Founders’ award for his leadership and dedication in carrying this publication into its third year. Lastly, we would like to celebrate Sharon Haar’s elevation to FAIA. We congratulate you all on your well-deserved recognition and thank you for your contributions to this organization over the years.

We thank you for your interest in this Chapter’s work and hope this publication can continue to inspire you in the days to come.

Sincerely,

Lindsey Suardini 2019 Chapter President, AIA Huron Valley

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Lorch Hall Drawings Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Emil Lorch Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

Lorch Hall Photo by Janet Kreger

PURE DESIGN Emil Lorch, Architectural Education, and Michigan

by Jeffrey Welch

American Visionary Sometime in the spring of 1923, Emil Lorch persuaded the modernist Finnish architect, Eliel Saarinen, to teach a short course in architectural design at the University of Michigan. Though Eliel Saarinen was wooed by other schools, Emil Lorch had the better hand because his program at the university, more so than those at other schools, attended to issues of modernity in architectural thinking and practice. It was an attitude neatly embodied in the dapper figure of Emil Lorch, whose formative experiences in Chicago in 1899-1901 set him on a path to leadership in architectural education. For thirty years, 1906-1936, he led the architecture program at the University of Michigan.

On the Way to Chicago In 1899 Emil Lorch arrived in Chicago to be an assistant to William M. R. French, director of the Art Institute of Chicago.1 For this role he was overqualified and underpaid, but it was a job in line with his interests and acquired on the rebound.

Born in Detroit in 1870 in a German family, Emil Lorch was fluent in German and he worked assiduously to acquire perfect French. After high school he attended the Detroit Museum of Art’s art school before enrolling in a special program at MIT, the oldest architectural school in the country. He studied for two years in Cambridge and while there he also worked in the office of Peabody & Stearns, a venerable, conservative Boston firm. At that time, Robert S. Peabody was one of five Eastern architects involved in planning the Chicago World’s Fair. His firm was engaged on the Machinery Building, to be clothed in Italian Renaissance ornamentation. Emil Lorch worked on this project. Returning to Detroit, Emil Lorch became a teacher at the Detroit Museum of Art school in 1895, where he quickly rose to second in command. An inveterate organizer and attentive to administrative and educational issues, he took charge of night classes and he started up the Detroit Architectural Sketch Club in 1896 to support the young draftsmen in city architectural firms. In 1897, sponsored by H. J. Maxwell Grylls, he was invited to become an honorary member of the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. A successful and respected teacher and administrator, he was slated to take over direction of the art school for school year 1898-1899.

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At this time Emil Lorch already projected an indomitable will, an enterprising resourcefulness, and a deft sensitivity to trends. To prepare for his new role, he went to Europe for the summer, traveling in Germany and Austria before settling in Paris.

He was planning to attend an international conference on public art in Brussels with the idea of sending back five “letters” to be published in the Detroit Evening News and other newspapers. In Paris, however, he received notice that the museum school would be closed, permanently. It was a bewildering turn of events, and there had been no inkling of it beforehand. Rather than return to Detroit, he spent the year in Paris, attending lectures and studying at the Collège de France, the École des BeauxArts, and the École du Louvre. He witnessed Emil Lorch, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan (and was impressed by) the national competitions held to design buildings for the Paris Exposition of 1900, and he became thoroughly familiar with École des Beaux-Arts practices. While in Paris he met N. H. Carpenter, secretary to the Board of Trustees at the Chicago Institute of Art. Returning to Detroit in September 1899, Emil Lorch confronted Detroit Museum of Art Director A. H. Griffith, receiving from him the additional $600. he insisted he was owed (but which all along the museum had refused to pay). 2 Going in, the appointment in Chicago seemed to be merely an echo of his museum school job in Detroit.

Fiery Architects in Chicago Here the story enters an uncanny dimension. By 1899 the Chicago Architectural Club had been taken over by a new generation of architects, young lions energized by the outspoken visionary architect Louis Sullivan. These men, Dwight Perkins, George Dean, Robert Spencer, Jr., George Maher, Max Dunning, Myron Hunt, Irving and Allen Pond, F. W. Fitzpatrick and others, led the movement to found the Architectural League of America in the spring of 1899. The Architectural League of America focused on organizing a working relationship among architectural clubs in Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Boston and Toronto. They wished to coordinate traveling exhibitions to be shared among them, and in particular they took up the subject of architectural education. They thought that Beaux-Arts methods of education did not apply in American urban environments nor in the design of tall buildings. Furthermore, the interests of the Western architects were not being served by the American Institute of Architects, based in New York, where the succession of presidents (all Beaux-Arts men), saw the 8

conservative architects of the Chicago World’s Fair simply pass the post one to the next: Richard Morris Hunt (1888-1891), Daniel Burnham (1894-1895), George Post (1896-1898), Henry Van Brunt (1899-1900), Robert Peabody (19001901), Charles McKim (1902-1903). At the end of the second convention of the Architectural League of America in Chicago in the spring of 1900, Emil Lorch was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the Executive Committee, a post giving him a wide range of responsibility and opportunities for communication both national and international. European travel, language skills, a ready pen and his presidency of the Detroit Architectural Sketch Club fitted him for this role, and through it he became familiar and often friends with the leading architects and architectural educators in these member cities.

An Articulate Advocate for Pure Design In May 1901, at the third convention of the Architectural League of America in Philadelphia, Emil Lorch made a presentation on a new departure in the study of architectural design. His address was published in the June issue of the Chicago-based Inland Architect and News Record as “Some Considerations Upon the Study of Architectural Design,” and it was accompanied by Robert Spencer, Jr.’s, kindred address, “Should the Study of Architectural Design and the Historic Styles Follow and Be Based Upon a Knowledge of Pure Design?” (The answer was Yes). 3 This June issue was dedicated to the question of architectural education, which had been the focus of the Philadelphia convention where Emil Lorch had taken center stage. Just when or where he encountered this new approach to art education, whether while studying in Cambridge, MA (1891-1893) or teaching in Detroit (1895-1898)—he was by 1901 in command of these new ideas.

Louis H. Sullivan

William LeBaron Jenney, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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(top) Exercise from A Theory of Pure Design (bottom) Exercise from Composition

At the turn of the century, the concepts of “pure design” were still taking form.

Emil Lorch and his Chicago colleagues had the benefit of Arthur Wesley Dow’s book, Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected from a New System of Art Education (1899) to strengthen their ideological position. Composition claimed to be “the first publication of any consecutive series based upon the scheme of art education whose elements are here presented.”4 It invited students to develop sensitivity to line, composition and color through a series of exercises of ever-widening complexity. Through the comparison of their own work performed in each exercise, students learned to recognize the importance of structural details and, with ongoing experience, become aware of the presence of quality, perfection, even beauty 5 in their work. At its heart, Composition enabled the student to identify the formal elements in a work of art, to analyze the artist’s means of expression, and to find inspiration for his own creative ends. The other major American proponent of pure design, Denman Ross, published his book, A Theory of Pure Design: Harmony, Balance, Rhythm with Illustrations and Diagrams, in 1907, giving the phrase “pure design” a wider and fixed association. Both these books share a basic approach to design education. What made Emil Lorch’s new ideas radically different (at least in the eyes of teachers of architecture and traditionalist architects) was lifting the design terms of pure design out of a fine arts context and applying them to teaching architectural design. The more general concept is easy to grasp, since these days the approach taken by advocates of pure design have become a commonplace in art education programs. Rather than teach architectural design by rote copying of historical models, students would be asked to solve problems using simple design elements—dots, lines, geometrical shapes. Such exercises developed analytical skills, inculcated sensitivity to shapes, structures and whole schemes, and led to greater self-confidence in discerning what was good. Giving the student stronger powers of observation and independent judgment also contributed to creating an autonomous citizen. For these American architects, this outcome fostered a habit of thinking that was essential in the evolution of a democratic society.

Pure Design: An American Innovation However, even before he made his case at the convention in Philadelphia, Emil Lorch had been “discontinued”6 from his job at the art school on May 11th, reportedly at Daniel Burnham’s instigation.7 Most probably the cause was his effort to introduce pure design into his architectural drawing classes. While the younger students liked his classes, the older ones complained. Yet there were other aspects in the overall picture that may have put him at odds with his immediate employer. An impatient Emil Lorch may have overstepped his role of assistant director when he spoke out in public about a city proposal to build a permanent Arch of Triumph to honor Admiral Dewey.8 The Chicago Tribune published his drawing for the viewing stand for Dewey’s visit. In another instance, since Director French was absent, Emil Lorch found himself standing beside museum President Charles Hutchinson to explain why so many art 11

school students (20 out of 27) had failed the examination for teaching posts in Chicago schools. Here he was defending a program he had only recently joined. Emil Lorch had also written an article for the Chicago Tribune assessing the exhibition of American Art (which also included work by students in the Art Museum School) at the Paris Exposition of 1900. This article displayed his expertise as an educator, and it revealed his notably sovereign knowledge of art educational practices in Chicago city schools. Such demonstrations as these— of his competence, ambition, social prowess and wide knowledge—may well have alarmed his supervisor.

A second very probable cause of his being fired from the museum school, of course, involved recent developments in Washington, D. C., as Daniel Burnham had just been tapped in March 1901 to lead the Senate Park Commission in its mission to give the city a new look.9 This commission, in league with the American Institute of Architects, maneuvered to take command of the Federal building program for an imperial Mall; at the same time, the American Institute of Architects was in the process of moving its headquarters to Washington, D. C. The wider strategy of the Eastern architects included the erasure of the Architectural League of America, which was agitating for an American architecture derived from New World landscapes, flora and fauna, building forms and democratic spirit. The Eastern architects did not like being described as “French” architects and mere copyists enslaved to anti-democratic European architectural styles and educational training. Pure design was being touted as an answer, a way of releasing the creative imagination of young people searching for more modern forms of architectural expression, and it was Emil Lorch who seemed to have the firmest grip on these ideas that so inspired his Chicago colleagues in the spring of 1901 in Philadelphia.

Pure Design: A Subversive “Cult”

Daniel Burnham, 1912

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Emil Lorch’s departure from Chicago took some steam out of the Architectural League of America’s position on education. The idea of pure design impelled ready assent because it pointed out a simple truth: developing sensitivity to shapes, rhythms, repetitions, oppositions, color and natural forms sharpened skills of observation and trained the eye to appreciate beauty. Members of the Chicago Architectural Club and more generally the many organizations that joined to create the Architectural League of America understood this. They saw pure

Emil Lorch Teaching Notes, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

design as a method of freeing students from the monotony of copying historical styles by having them work with simpler and more abstract concepts during their early preparation, thus freeing up imaginative play. Also, they would be better prepared for the later study of architectural forms. Unfortunately, Emil Lorch was the only practicing educator among these busy architects; intuitively, they understood what he was trying to do but they could not do it themselves nor could they readily explain the concepts. Thus, when he was let go from the Art Institute in May 1901, this expertise went with him, and the Architectural League of America slowly lost its forward motion against the pushback from the East. In July 1900, for example, a sharp riposte in support of orthodox training methods had come from Alexander Trowbridge, head of architecture at Cornell and a longtime friend of Emil Lorch from Detroit days when Alexander Trowbridge mentored a young Albert Kahn. Again, in the November 1901 issue of Inland Architect and News Record, American Institute of Architects President Robert Peabody had this to say about training young architects by copying historical precedents: An education in an office plainly does not cultivate such powers.

Nor, do I believe with those who bow to that vague deity, pure design, that they are to be gained by the contemplation of Nature and the study of natural products. The art of architecture is necessarily conventional, and it is bound up with the history and the life of mankind, and the egotist who tries to play his hand alone makes a mistake.

In addressing directly the subject of the Architectural League of America, he intoned: “At times it has assumed a position of opposition to us, but I fancy that attitude, together with an endorsement of any passing cult, is but temporary, for fads and special cults [like Pure Design] pass away and only basic principles remain.� 10 These comments, expressed at the American Institute of Architects Convention, captured the attitude of the Eastern men as a whole.

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Emil Lorch Persists On his side, Emil Lorch was convinced that the application of this new method for teaching design in fine arts classes could also be applied to teaching architectural design. His mentors were Arthur Dow at Pratt Institute and Denman Ross at Harvard.

He had struck up a relationship with these men, inviting them both to speak about their work at the Architectural League of America Convention in Philadelphia. Although both men declined to make the trip, Denman Ross responded with an invitation to attend his summer class, open to selected individuals, mostly teachers seeking advancement and new methods of thinking. Emil Lorch did attend the summer class, and this, in turn, led to his taking a teaching assistantship in the architecture department at Harvard under its head H. Langford Warren. For the next two years Emil Lorch taught classes to pay the rent, completed the requirements for an M. A. in Architecture, and did independent research in pure design with Denman Ross. Architecture degree in hand at last, Emil Lorch found a position at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, a small school that gave him latitude to experiment with teaching his version of pure design in the classroom. After three years at the Drexel Institute, where he befriended Paul Cret at the University of Pennsylvania, Emil Lorch took up the task of building an architectural program from scratch at the University of Michigan.

(left) Emil Lorch Teaching Notes, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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On the Way to the University of Michigan In the two years at Harvard and three years at Drexel Institute, Emil Lorch stayed true to a deep conviction that pure design offered a better method for teaching architectural design. It is important to note here that in Chicago he had met and befriended Jemima Elmslie, sister of George Grant Elmslie; in June 1901, the couple became engaged.11 As the years unspooled, Emil Lorch sought a permanent position that would enable him to marry, while at the same time he worked steadily on his research in pure design. As it became a fact that he needed a degree to land a better job, he could justify taking two years to get a Master’s Degree from Harvard, but once in place at Drexel he pursued leads in all directions, and the drama of his job search is, happily, recorded in letters (copies are in the Bentley Historical Library) sent to “Myma” Elmslie on almost a daily basis.

Offers That Were Hard to Refuse In two key instances, Emil Lorch’s negotiations with possible employers indicate the importance to him of having freedom to pursue ongoing research in pure design. Almost as soon as he was hired at Drexel, his Harvard mentor, H. Langford Warren, apprised him of an opening at the University of Liverpool, England, where there was an interest in getting “an American who is familiar with the organization of our American schools.” Professor Warren leaned hard on his protege for admittedly selfish reasons: it would be a rare accomplishment for an American school to place a graduate in an English program, something for Professor Warren to brag about wherever he went. Regarding the curriculum at Liverpool, Professor Warren’s upbeat remarks dimmed any appeal for Emil Lorch: I do not believe that you would find that the curriculum is regarded as fixed. From what was told to me I think you would have pretty free swing though, of course, it would be undesirable to make sudden changes from the existing curriculum and at the beginning at least you would have to take things as you found them and the work would have to be fitted into the other work at the university.12

What was a plum for the professor was a pickle for the protege. A steady barrage of questions and time running short allowed Emil Lorch to finesse the situation and keep his friendship. Later, Professor Warren provided a key recommendation for Emil Lorch’s candidacy at the University of Michigan.

A second equally besetting opportunity arrived in mid-1904, an assistant professorship at the University of Pennsylvania (next door to Drexel Institute) then under the guidance of Professor Warren P. Laird. Professor Laird’s note of June 14 started a protracted negotiation, the heart of which was the question of Emil Lorch’s freedom to continue experimenting with pure design. These two 16

Emil Lorch Teaching Notes, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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men were well known to each other, and Emil Lorch had been invited to act as a judge of student work at the university. The Penn offer was tempting. The university was large and powerful, and he was respected and appreciated, and his situation at Drexel Institute had become problematic—his colleagues were lazy, the pay was low, the aging president showed signs of senility, and there was little opportunity for advancement. The enduring attraction, however, was curricular freedom. The position, as presented to him by Professor Laird on June 30, imposed a quite rigid set of teaching expectations for courses in architectural drawing, ‘graphics’ (projections, intersections and developments and otherwise elementary descriptive geometry), shades and shadows, perspective, rendering and order problems, and elementary design (courses numbered in the catalogue 1-5-7-9-13), in all of which the instructor is perfectly free [in the letter two bold lines have been struck through the word perfectly] as to methods; and draughting room work in the orders (course 3), which is done in close conjunction with the lectures in the subject given by myself. In all this work the methods are subject to my approval, and I desire to be in close touch with processes and results, for which latter course the instructor is responsible in proportion to the extent of the very large measure of freedom he is allowed.

This longish description opens several possibilities of interpretation. Chiefly, however, Professor Laird assumes that a close and fruitful working relationship can flourish through mutual understanding and shared standards of performance.

There is an exceedingly positive recognition of the younger man’s knowledge, skills and work ethic. At the same time the reality of close supervision implied the antithesis of curricular freedom, and the workload left little, if any, room for personal endeavors, particularly when Professor Laird set down a final expectation: he expected his assistant to give “a quiz a week to each of the two classes” lectured by him.

Myma Elmslie now in her third year of waiting received this comment from Emil Lorch, posted on June 30: “Today came Prof. Laird’s letter at last telling me more definitely what the job is, etc. It’s an instructorship in his own department at the U. of Penn. The character of the work is in fact different from what I am now doing & hence I am very doubtful about wanting it. It would involve none of the lecture work I am now able to do & desirous of continuing.”13 Once again, he finessed a situation in which he had to disappoint a close friend pressing hard for his cooperation. And once again, he later turned to Professor Laird to provide the second key recommendation to the University of Michigan.

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Michigan AIA Minutes, Emil Lorch Endorsed Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

An Opening at the University of Michigan On November 4, 1905, Emil Lorch wrote to Myma Elmslie: “This morning I found in the ‘American Architect’ an article telling that an Architecture Department is proposed at Ann Arbor. I am trying to get it..of course, and am about to send off letters. If you were here you could, if you insisted, write laudatory and commendatory letters to all those concerned for me. I must now learn who those persons are.” 14 He sent the first letter on November 4, to James E. Scripps, publisher of the Detroit Evening News. They had been long-time friends.

James Scripps wrote immediately to President James B. Angell strongly recommending Emil Lorch for the position. On the 5th, Emil Lorch wrote to five key men: Detroit architect H. J. Maxwell Grylls of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls of Detroit; John Donaldson, venerable Detroit architect active in the American Institute of Architects and, as well, the architectural consultant to the university and chairman of the search committee; George Ropes, Detroit architect and a close friend from MIT days; H. Langford Warren, head of architecture at Harvard; and F. W. Chandler, head of architecture at MIT, also a close friend. Presumably, he visited Professor Laird in person to ask for a recommendation. Emil Lorch did not know John Donaldson well, and John Donaldson did not seem to know him, but John Donaldson was on the board at the Detroit Museum of Art and a highprofile member of the American Institute of Architects representing the city of Detroit. His was the voice to be won.

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Emil Lorch, Drawings from a train window Courtesy of Molly Osler

Looking at Emil Lorch’s campaign for the job at Michigan, the conquest appears both tidy and super-efficient in spite of all the predictable contingencies and anxieties crowding the one-day-at-a-time process. Everyone he queried responded immediately to his requests for advice, information and support.

Laudatory and commendatory recommendations came in to John Donaldson from Professors Warren and Laird, H. J. Maxwell Grylls, F. W. Chandler and many others, including Louis Sullivan and Robert Spencer, Jr. On December 5, the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects endorsed Emil Lorch’s candidacy at a meeting including John Donaldson, who also joined his fellow architects to make it a full-throated endorsement, which he promised to take to the Board of Regents.15 Within one month and one day (November 4 to December 5) Emil Lorch had sewn up the whole matter.

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Two Impediments to Closure: Frenemies and Money However, as to be expected two snags threatened the movement to closure. An element of the bizarre inflects the first one. All along, Emil Lorch’s persistent championing of pure design concepts for teaching architectural design had troubled his conservative mentors and friends. One of the reasons he was rejected in a bid for a job at Princeton in mid-1905, for example, was his lack of “classical” training,” a euphemism for his skeptical attitude toward the accepted Beaux-Arts methods employed in architecture programs across the country. Not surprisingly, it was Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton, who met with Emil Lorch and decided he would not do for Princeton. In a letter to Professor Warren, Emil Lorch wrote: President Wilson “objected at once to my technical training and experience and ‘lack of classical training’.” In the larger picture, however, there were no exercises in technical training then being offered at Princeton, and furthermore, he wrote to Myma Elmslie that the professors he met there were mere archaeologists, who would teach the history of painting—with no reference to color in a concrete sense and seemed to draw back from in our discussions. [sic] The President objected at once to my lack of classical training and to my training and experience of a technical rather than merely a cultural study nature. I only hope that they did nothing, by inquiry, that might endanger the unwholesome place at Drexel.

Emil Lorch Teaching Notes, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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Emil Lorch would have been unhappy in such a small and unscientific environment.

He much admired the cultured men he had met at Princeton but the curriculum held little appeal: “They would be splendid men as associates although with all respect to their academic training and great learning they know—little about teaching their subjects. They ought to go to a normal school for method work.”

And his take on the small college town—an expensive place with no theaters or musical concerts—was unflattering: living there would be “thus conducive to the fostering of intense loyalty, self-satisfaction and the other sins of provincialism.

You see I am a little doubtful—and yet there is that cringing cur at Drexel Institute.” 16 It was most fortunate under these circumstances that the Michigan announcement came just a few months after this mutual rejection for an Ivy League position, which, on the surface, seemed most desirable.

And yet a competitive energy had been triggered by the youthful upstart at Michigan. It posed a direct challenge to the venerable architectural programs at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Professors Warren and Laird had sent in their letters of recommendation to John Donaldson by mid-November 1905, a fact that he duly reported to Emil Lorch on November 21. However, in this otherwise informational letter, John Donaldson also proposed an idea so completely counterintuitive and off base that it had to have produced great consternation. In a tone evocative of an imperial directive, John Donaldson wrote the following: I am inclined to think that it would be but for the present at least to attempt at the U. of M. a good preparatory Architectural School leaving the establishing of an advanced School for the future.

It would seem wise to me to concentrate the energies & resources upon a few high class advanced Schools, rather than upon the multiplication of a large number of weaker schools.

I shall be glad to hear from you on this matter.17

Much later, Emil Lorch discovered that Professor Warren (in league with Professor Laird) had included this suggestion in his letter of recommendation to John Donaldson. At first, it appeared that the idea had originated with John Donaldson. However, learning of the true source in late December from Professor Warren himself, Emil Lorch met with Professor Warren to clear the air. It was just as well, because the word out of Chicago in January 1906 from George Grant Elmslie, had Louis Sullivan getting ready to come out of his corner to enter the fray: Minnie [Myma] spoke the other day of the good professors of Architecture desiring the establishment of a Preparatory School at Ann Arbor. Good Heavens that is awful. I can’t imagine anything more disastrous to your 22

welfare there, than such a scheme, if carried out. Do you want anything done from here in the matter. Mr. S. will write every Prominent Architect in the West, if need be, and have them protest against such an undertaking.

Do you want the thing taken up, say, as a mere rumor. It is to me an exceedingly serious condition of affairs, because Laird & Warren can do a whole lot of harm, a whole damn lot of harm and more than that!!18 The good professors revealed a desire to blunt this new competition from a large, powerful and growing institution. They revealed themselves, also, as veteran administrators yearning to raise their own programs to graduate status.

Emil Lorch absorbed it all and set aside any sign of disappointment in what they had done.

The second snag involved an unnecessary hitch in communications regarding the costs of starting up a brand-new program within the domain of the Department of Engineering. Emil Lorch had asked for $5,000. for the first year for books, supplies and teaching materials such as lantern slides but as the day of reckoning came on the university balked at the sum. The amount had been suggested to him previously, so it was a surprise to him to learn that the Board of Regents could not commit to $15 or $20,000. over the first four or five years. In his negotiations with President Angell, Emil Lorch took a compromising tack, asking what the university thought to be reasonable; the sum turned out to be $2,000., a workable number under the circumstances. Emil Lorch met with President Angell at the Murray Hill Hotel in New York City on Saturday, January 26, 1906. He wrote Myma Elmslie on Sunday: “Just think of it Dearheart—it is all settled and our hopes are going to be realized! It all seems too good to be true.�

Letter to Myma Elmslie from Emil Lorch, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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Š President and Fellows of Harvard College

The Enduring Influence of Denman Ross With good humor and his dry irony, Emil Lorch in this same letter of January 27th, commented to Myma Elmslie as to thanking those who had helped him: There is going to be a heap for me to do this Spring especially during the next few weeks. I dread the amount of correspondence involved. Now I must write letters to so many people to tell of the result and then will come the congratulations, and the letters in reply to all these.—it involves more writing than getting married!!19 His draft of his letter to Denman Ross on March 8 deserves to be quoted at length: The inspiration received from you during the last four years has been so large a factor in the success of my work as a teacher of design that this moment when the opportunity of my life lies before me, seems peculiarly fitting to express to you my deep gratitude.

It was largely perhaps entirely due to your initiative that I received my first opportunity at Harvard enabled me to carry on the work for studies and along with the friendly associations and characters that have been of real help to me and I will always feel indebted to you for this and much more. [sic] 20 24

Denman Ross published his own book on the subject, A Theory of Pure Design, in 1907. It would be wrong to claim that Emil Lorch’s researches in the company of Denman Ross from the summer of 1901 to the fall of 1903, and the continuing relationship with him after leaving Harvard and moving to Ann Arbor contributed to shaping the magnum opus. The fact remains, however, that Emil Lorch’s commitment to this new method of teaching architectural design helped him stay true to something deeply felt and deeply right. It is not surprising that he would say, “It all seems too good to be true,” but it is also wholly appropriate to acknowledge a just reward for keeping to a high ideal.

Informal portrait of Emil Lorch by Alexis Lapteff, 1928 Courtesy of Molly Osler

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Aftermath Emil Lorch brought to Michigan a completely balanced appreciation for the benefits of Beaux-Arts training and for the merits of teaching architectural design using the principles of pure design. His experiences in the East and the Midwest and in Europe provided a perspective on the politics and the prejudices facing young architects emerging from college programs. He had the unexpectedly thrilling exposure in Chicago to an outspoken advocacy for an “American” architecture. His sojourn there brought him into direct contact with Louis Sullivan, the rising star Frank Lloyd Wright, George Grant Elmslie and so many other proud, restless and progressive architects. During his years at the University of Michigan, Emil Lorch asked three times that an honorary degree be given to Louis Sullivan, who was a frequent visitor to Ann Arbor.

One interesting sign of Emil Lorch’s deep preoccupation with Chicago architecture came to light in 1932. An ongoing controversy in architectural history, related to the origin of the steel cage system for constructing skyscrapers, appeared to be resolved after the careful examination of the Home Insurance Building (1883-1885) then being demolished in 1931. Steel cage construction enabled a tall building to rise entirely free from masonry support. Though a patent had been given to Minneapolis architect Leroy S. Buffington in 1888, it had just been shown (and reported to the Michigan Daily by Professor Lorch in 1932), 21 that actually it was William Le Baron Jenney who first used it successfully in his Home Insurance Building. As fate would have it, W. L. B. Jenney had been invited to Ann Arbor in 1876 to start up an architecture program. He gladly came to Ann Arbor to teach, but the state appropriation supported the plan for only one year.

The College of Architecture went “Modern” after the Second World War. But already in its DNA was a turn to a progressive Western outlook. Both incarnations of its architecture program were led by accomplished and creative men, one of them, W. L. B. Jenney, the founder of the Chicago School, and the other, Emil Lorch, the exceptional teacher, administrator and architect. His great project in the late 1920s was the design for the Architecture building that now bears his name. Its tower harmonized with the other two modernist towers at the Michigan Union and the Michigan League, visible above the central campus trees, and designed by Chicago architect Irving Pond. So it was that out at the University of Michigan in the Midwest, Emil Lorch, a modernist keen to anticipate the coming trends, brought extraordinary figures like Louis Sullivan and Eliel Saarinen to Michigan, for the benefit of his students, his university and his state.

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During his December 1905 interviews, Emil Lorch could see the need for a campus plan University of Michigan Campus Plan, 1906, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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End Notes 1 Materials used for this essay are from the Emil Lorch Papers, Box 1, at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Biographical details and letters are supplemented by draft copies of letters written by Emil Lorch to his fiancée, Jemima “Myma” Elmslie, between 1901-1906.

2 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, September 6, 1899, Box 1-6.

3 Inland Architect and Building News, 37, 5 (June 1901), p. 34, pp. 34-35.

4 Arthur Wesley Dow, Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected from a New System of Art Education, (New York: The Baker and Taylor Company, 1899), p. 5.

5 Actually, the two proponents of pure design, Arthur Wesley Dow and Denman Ross, differed on this point. For Arthur Dow, learning to compose and create a wholeness—his term for it was “composition”—awakened the individual to know and to feel beauty and possibly be able to produce it. Denman Ross stayed resolutely scientific in his course of training students. He liked to say, “We aim at order and hope for beauty.”

6 The use of the word “discontinue” by W. M. R. French sought to soften the rejection implicit in the firing of Emil Lorch. “In spite of personal liking and appreciation of your attainments and your work, I find I was mistaken in thinking I wanted an assistant Director, although I want a good private secretary very much. I am unable to invent any service suitable to you and within our means.” Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Box 1-9.

7 Two key sources view Emil Lorch and the subject of pure design differently. Wilbert R. Hasbrouck, in The Chicago Architectural Club: Prelude to the Modern, (New York: Monacelli Press, 2005), p.

287, notices Emil Lorch’s presence in Chicago in a caption accompanying a portrait of him. “Lorch and Sullivan shared an interest in ‘modernizing’ architectural education. In the spring of 1901, the school’s [Art School of the Art Institute of Chicago] advisory group of architects [Daniel] Burnham, [Howard Van Doren] Shaw, [James Gamble] Rogers, [Charles] Frost, and [Charles] Coolidge led a campaign to replace Lorch and some time later he left Chicago.”

H. Allen Brooks in his The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwestern Contemporaries, (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 39-41, took note of Emil Lorch’s influence at the Philadelphia convention, but he quoted from the Chicago-based periodical Inland Architect and News Record 37, 5 (June 1901), p. 33, to convey the impression made by him at the time: Under the influence, and it does not seem improper to say under the leadership of Emil Lorch, for the past two years, the League has devoted much attention to the discussion of the necessity for the study of pure design in architectural education in place of the time-honored practice of training the student along classical and historical lines. The clubs of the League have endorsed the movement for which the Chicago Club gave initiative, and it has already grown so strong and developed such practical and feasible characteristics as to compel the attention of architectural educators everywhere.

But then H. Allen Brooks drops the subject of pure design: “The concept of pure design, like so many theories for architectural design in the nineteenth century, might well have come to naught but for one listener at the League convention. Upon [Frank Lloyd] Wright they made a deep impression and through his subsequent work the essence of pure design was transmitted to the world.”

8 Chicago Tribune articles: “Naval Architecture in Marble,” 26 August 1900, p. 2; “Reviewing Stand for the Coming Dewey Celebration in Chicago Planned by Architect Emil Lorch,” 3 April 1900, p. 2; “Failure to Pass Art Test: Institute Graduates Do Not Qualify for Teachers,” 9 January 1901, p. 8; “Editorials by the Laity,” 12 August 1900, p. 39.

9 Daniel H. Burnham: Architect Planner of Cities, by Charles Moore (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), Volume 1, p. 139.

10 “Architectural Education,” by Alexander Trowbridge, Inland Architect and News Record 35, 6 (July 1900), p. 48. “Thirty-Fifth Annual Convention American Institute of Architects,” “Annual Address of the President of the American Institute of Architects,” by Robert S. Peabody, Inland Architect and News Record 37, 5 (June 1901), pp. 29-31. See pp. 29-30.

11 George Grant Elmslie, brought into the Chicago firm Adler and Sullivan on Frank Lloyd Wright’s recommendation in the early 1890s, stayed and worked together with Louis Sullivan until 1909.

12 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, November 17, 1903, Box 1-29 .

13 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, letters from Professor Warren P. Laird to Emil Lorch, June 14 and June 30, 1904, and letter from Emil Lorch to Myma Elmslie, June 30, 1904, Box 1-32.

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14 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, November 4, 1905, Box 1-41.

15 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, December 20 letter from H. J. Maxwell Grylls, including the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Program of the December 5, 1905, meeting, Box 1-42.

16 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, August 7, 1905, Box 1-39.

17 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, November 21, 1905, Box 1-42. See also H. L. Warren’s letter to Emil Lorch, December 23, 1905, Box 1-42.

18 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, January 1906, Box 1-44.

19 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, January 27, 1906, but misfiled in Box 1-43 in the file titled “Undated 1905.”

20 Emil Lorch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, March 8, 1906, Box 1-44.

21 The Michigan Daily, Volume 13, Issue 45 (18 August 1932), p. 4. Later research tends to confirm that Leroy S. Buffington’s patent did express the first steel cage design for a tall building. See Gerald R. Larson, “The Iron Skeleton Frame: Interactions Between Europe and the United States,” in Chicago Architecture 1872-1922: Birth of a Metropolis, edited by John Zukowsky, (Prestel-Verlag, Munich, in association with The Art Institute of Chicago, 1987), pp. 39-55.

By Jeffrey Welch © All rights reserved September 17, 2019 Acknowledgments: Many thanks to the Bentley Historical Library staff, and in particular Malgosia Myc, Diana Bachman and Karen Wight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Jeffrey Welch Recently retired to Ann Arbor, Jeffrey Welch was a teacher at Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, for almost forty years. The incomparable architectural atmosphere at Cranbrook and living in and working in buildings designed by Eliel Saarinen have led to a book on the founding and history of Cranbrook. A graduate of Harvard College in 1971, he received a Ph. D. in English from the University of Michigan in 1978. His ongoing research now includes the career of Emil Lorch, the first head of the University of Michigan school of architecture, and topics related to Midcentury Modern architects and architecture in Michigan.

Photo credit: Kevin Adkisson

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University of Michigan, North Campus Housing, Architectural Record (August 1956)

Model, including married student housing area (top right) of Eero Saarinen plan for North Campus. “At the University of Michigan, An Answer to Expansion,� Architectural Forum 98 (June 195 3), p. 119.

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MINORU YAMASAKI’S Northwood Apartments at the University of Michigan

by Dale Allen Gyure

People tend to think of Minoru Yamasaki as an architect of skyscrapers, particularly the World Trade Center. While it’s true that he achieved fame through the design of tall buildings, Yamasaki created nearly as many apartment buildings as office towers, and before he turned to skyscrapers he was known as a talented designer of public housing. In the early 1950s he designed a number of apartment projects in Missouri and Michigan before being commissioned by the University of Michigan to produce a group of buildings for married students.

Still in use, the Northwood Apartments I-III on the University of Michigan North Campus are little-known architecturally, but represent some of Yamasaki’s most creative work in terms of working through variations on a building type.

The Northwood story begins with Eero Saarinen and Associates’ 1951 master plan for the university’s North Campus. Within a few years of the initial publicity, the University of Michigan announced the architects for many of the new buildings, including Yamasaki’s firm—Leinweber, Yamasaki and Hellmuth (LYH)—for married student housing. Yamasaki’s selection probably had much to do with his personal relationship with Eero Saarinen. After Smith, Hinchman & Grylls lured Yamasaki from New York to Detroit in 1945, making him their chief designer, Yamasaki’s personal connection with the younger Saarinen helped Smith, Hinchman gain the coveted role of associate architects for the General Motors Technical Center. By the early fifties the two men had been friends—and friendly rivals—for years.

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Yamasaki and Public Housing Beyond his association with Saarinen, Yamasaki was eminently qualified to design apartment buildings. He’d designed seven public housing developments in the four years prior to becoming involved with North Campus. In St. Louis alone, Hellmuth, Yamasaki and Leinweber (HYL), as the firm was known in that city, created nearly 5,000 housing units in three urban complexes with Yamasaki as lead designer.1 These weren’t pleasant experiences, however, since much of the architect’s time was spent fighting against federal housing restrictions and bureaucracy. Nevertheless, Yamasaki emerged from the St. Louis experience as a national spokesperson for multi-story housing, leading the fight against those who preferred low-rise rowhouses over towers; this also may be an early indication of his increasing interest in high-rise architecture. He also designed some smaller scale housing units for Michigan sites, including a scheme constructed in Benton Harbor, where he encountered more federal limitations on size, space, and materials.

In the era before public housing initiatives like Yamasaki’s Pruitt-Igoe Apartments (1950-56) or Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes were uniformly vilified — when mass housing was viewed as a savior, not a creator, of urban problems — schemes like Yamasaki’s demonstrated his facility with large-scale planning and construction while also displaying appropriate social concerns for a modernist architect beginning to move into the professional spotlight. For purposes of the University of Michigan, the public housing commissions showed Yamasaki’s aptitude for designing large numbers of housing units in far more restricted and uninspiring circumstances than would be required of him in Ann Arbor.

Yamasaki’s initial foray into multi-unit apartment design, the Cochran Gardens (1949-53) in St. Louis, garnered him a Gold Medal from the local AIA chapter and an Honorable Mention from the prestigious Architectural League of New York. He spoke at a real estate conventions, attended academic conferences, and published articles extolling the benefits of high-rise architecture. His Pruitt-Igoe Apartments were widely publicized and highly regarded. The smaller Benton Harbor apartments, consisting of ninety-four low-rent units in nineteen two-story buildings, also received coverage in Progressive Architecture, and represented the other end of Yamasaki’s public housing work. 2 In all of these cases, however, continuing battles with government housing bureaucrats made designing these buildings a grueling and unwelcome experience. They may have inspired Yamasaki’s withdrawal from mass housing design in the mid-fifties, after two final projects: the Gratiot Redevelopment Project and the University of Michigan Northwood Apartments.

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Fig. 1: Detail of the Gratiot Redevelopment Project plan showing courtyard houses. “Redevelopment f.o.b. Detroit,” Architectural Forum 102 (March 1955), p. 121. This project, though unbuilt, was designed by Yamasaki in the same year as Northwood II.

Redeveloping Detroit The same year that he designed the second group of apartments for the University of Michigan (Northwood II), Yamasaki worked with a team of outside architects on a Detroit redevelopment scheme that seems to have influenced the Ann Arbor design. Detroit’s political leaders had high hopes for the “Gratiot site,” an approximately rectangular piece of property less than a mile northeast of the Campus Martius intended to be the first great triumph of “urban renewal” in the city. But after razing a thriving African-American neighborhood, boosters were unable to find a developer to take it on. The land sat cleared and vacant for years before some private citizens, partly with the initiative and funding of United Automobile Workers president Walter Reuther, formed the non-profit Citizens’ Redevelopment Committee (CRC) to stimulate the process in 1954. The CRC sought a racially integrated complex of middle- and upper-middle-class housing and hired the ad hoc firm of Minoru Yamasaki, Oscar Stonorov, and Victor Gruen (actually his associate Karl Van Leuven) to design a proposal for marketing to developers. Their scheme filled the plot with 4,500 units in various combinations of high- and low-rise buildings. They retained Detroit’s gridded street plan but removed most of the through-streets, keeping density low by spreading clusters of courtyard houses throughout the site (Fig. 1). Also included were high-rise towers—generally gathered in threes around a plaza—and open fields for sports and recreation.

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Yamasaki was proud of the Gratiot design and certain it would attract a developer.

It did, but under unfortunate circumstances. In late November 1955, Yamasaki received a letter from Chicago developer Herbert S. Greenwald, who had spent the last few years funding a series of apartment buildings in that city designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, including the much-lauded 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1948-51) . Greenwald’s letter announced that he’d been hired by the CRC to develop the Gratiot site, and that Mies would soon be reviewing the maps and Yamasaki’s drawings. In other words, Greenwald and Mies were taking over the Gratiot project just months after Yamasaki’s team completed their study.

They were certainly within their rights to do so, since the Yamasaki-StonorovGruen design was exploratory and never intended to be a commission, but the missed opportunity must have hurt Yamasaki, particularly after the St. Louis public housing experience had been so distasteful. Greenwald’s version would become Lafayette Park, the largest collection of Mies van der Rohe buildings in the world and a model of successful urban housing. Ironically, about a week after this notification from Greenwald, the journal Progressive Architecture awarded Yamasaki’s Gratiot Redevelopment Project a “First Design Award;” and months later urbanist Jane Jacobs praised the Gratiot proposal at the First Harvard Urban Design Seminar. 3 These gestures were likely of little consolation to Yamasaki after losing such a potentially high-profile design opportunity.

The Northwood Apartments and the Gratiot Redevelopment were the last times Yamasaki designed projects with mass living units as their raison d’être, if one doesn’t count some later hotels and a handful of college dormitory buildings.

After devoting half-a-decade to specializing in public-oriented buildings like apartments, schools, and single-family houses, Yamasaki began moving toward higher profile commissions for commerce, finance, and higher education.

Saarinen’s North Campus The University of Michigan married student apartments, named Northwood I, are listed in the LYH records for the first time in 1953. In the middle of that year an Architectural Forum article unveiled Saarinen’s preliminary plans for North Campus, including a site plan and a photograph of a model, both featuring an extensive area of the property’s northern section labelled “Married Student Housing.”4 The model depicted groups of slab-like structures arranged to create a kind of dumbbell-shaped open space bordered by apartment buildings which were then surrounded by trees (Fig. 2). Except for their greater distances between buildings, these married student units were very similar to the undergraduate dormitories Saarinen envisioned for the new campus’ western edge. Strangely, the model didn’t match a reverse image site plan published three pages later.

The plan featured a more extensive, numerous, and formal set of “Married Student Housing” slabs, assembled into small courts along a strict north-south alignment and bifurcated by Beal Avenue (Fig. 3). The article didn’t explain the discrepancy, nor was Yamasaki’s name mentioned. It’s doubtful if Yamasaki had any input into this nascent design given the early date. Also, both the model and 34

Fig. 2 (above): Model, married student housing area of Eero Saarinen plan for North Campus. “At the University of Michigan, An Answer to Expansion,” Architectural Forum 98 (June 1953), p. 119. Saarinen’s married housing schemes, seen also in Figs. 3, 8, and 9, may have influenced Yamasaki’s final conception.

Fig. 3 (left): Detail of the married student housing area of Eero Saarinen plan for North Campus. “At the University of Michigan, An Answer to Expansion,” p. 121.

the site plan versions of married housing at this early stage echo the shapes and rhythms of the other North Campus buildings, strengthening the case for attributing their design to Saarinen.

Thus the earliest published site studies for Northwood I are confusing. Upon closer examination it can be seen that the plan drawing published in the Forum article is close to what was built but not a perfect match, while the photographed model from the same article displays a different, unused version. Yamasaki’s entry into the North Campus planning process might account for the variation.

LYH’s final plans and specifications for Section I of the Northwood Apartments were presented to the university’s Board of Regents in February 1954. Lynn W. Fry, the university’s Supervising Architect, would oversee the estimated $1 million project to create 100 housing units for married students and staff members. The Regents authorized the university to make a final application to the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) under Title IV of the Housing Act of 1950 (Public Law 475, 81st Cong.).

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Postwar Enrollments American higher education was challenged in the first two decades after the end of World War II as the combined effects of a population explosion, the GI Bill (which provided free college tuition to veterans), and changing social attitudes overtaxed existing facilities. One early 1950’s education writer estimated that “Facilities which were in many cases considered inadequate for prewar enrollments of slightly more than a million students suddenly were required to serve more than two million.” 5 The University of Michigan’s student population demonstrated this very clearly. The university’s enrollment almost doubled in the three years following the war, and continued to grow steadily, except for the brief interlude of 1950-52, when many students served in the Korean War. And a surprisingly large percentage of those new students utilized the GI Bill. In 1950, for example, the university reported 27,858 students in residential credit programs (i.e., living on campus), of which 12,210—or 44 percent—were categorized as “veterans.”6 Many of these war veterans enrolled as married students, reflecting a general trend visible across the decade. Statistics showed that by 1960 about 24 percent of the total college student population were married.7 The federal government’s first move to stem the higher education housing crisis had been to initiate a campaign to re-use war surplus buildings for veterans and their families. By May 1948, the Public Housing Agency (PHA) had spent about $160 million to dismantle, move, and reconstruct surplus buildings on college campuses, creating 75,000 dormitory units and 53,000 family units. Under the terms of their existing rules, the PHA financed only a portion of these endeavors, while the college had to pay almost half of the cost of creating dormitories and one-fifth the total for apartment units. 8 These efforts, though substantial, proved inadequate. Educators successfully lobbied Congress for a new law, resulting in the enactment of Title IV to authorize federal loans to institutions of higher education for the purpose of creating new dormitories and apartments on college campuses rather than recycling existing structures. Loans totaling $300 million were authorized to be administered by the HHFA, with the United States Office of Education acting in an advisory capacity.

In an effort to stimulate construction, the government set interest rates on longterm bonds at less than 3 percent and allowed amortization to be extended over a forty-year period. In order to qualify the institution had to demonstrate that (a) comparable private financing wasn’t available, and (b) the college or university engaged in the defense effort in some manner, including expanding an ROTC program, increasing curricula pertaining to “subjects related to defense needs,” engagement in defense contracts, or a location in a critical defense housing area.9 The University of Michigan met all of these requirements.

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Fig. 4 (left): Northwood Apartments site plan; drawing revised from “Campus Housing in New and Varied Patterns,” Architectural Record 120 (Aug. 1956), p. 191.

Northwood I was prepared in 1953; Northwood II in 1954; Northwood III in 1955.

Fig. 5: Northwood I. Photograph by author, 2019.

Northwood I The first set of apartments, called Northwood I, was planned for an area of about fourteen acres west of Beal Avenue and north of Hubbard Road. The Saarinen plan showed this section of the new campus, on a natural plateau north of the academic buildings, covered with slab buildings and interlocking courts to match the rest of the proposed North Campus buildings, and roughly echoing the dormitories intended for the opposite end of the campus. Saarinen had envisioned the married student housing as multi-storied rectangular slabs, with pairs of buildings forming a split L-shape arranged in triplets to create internal courtyards. Parking lots were pushed to the site’s outer edges to keep the automobiles from penetrating too far into the housing areas.

Yamasaki adapted Saarinen’s motif for Northwood I. He began with the site, which he described as “a very beautiful piece of land” with “lovely rolling contours and many beautiful trees.” 10 Seeking to “break away from the formal lines of the rest of the campus and create a somewhat less formal feeling in contrast,” he borrowed Saarinen’s multistory slabs for the main building blocks but reduced their size and number and added one or two small extensions to the ends of some. With this vocabulary of I-, L- and U- shaped buildings, Yamasaki was able to fulfill Saarinen’s desire for a series of courtyard spaces (Figs. 4 and 9). He organized the six buildings in triplets; each group of three created an open quadrangle for lawn and trees as seen in the plan. Together the triplets created a zigzag courtyard of open space. Slightly offset, the buildings allowed interesting views through and beyond themselves while retaining the sense of enclosure (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 6 (top): Early version of Northwood I, revised before construction. “The University of Michigan Outgrows Its Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan,” Architectural Record 117 (Jan. 1955), p. 133. These buildings aren’t much different from the public housing apartments Yamasaki had been working on before the Northwood commission.

Fig. 7: Northwood I. Photograph by author, 2019.

Fig. 8 (bottom). Model, married student housing area of Eero Saarinen plan for North Campus.

“The University of Michigan Outgrows Its Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan,” p. 132.

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Northwood I made its debut on the national stage in a 1955 Architectural Record article on North Campus. Despite Yamasaki’s efforts to avoid designing something that looked like public housing, the twostory apartment structures in these first published drawings look quite similar to Yamasaki’s work in St. Louis (Fig. 6).

Each building was a solid block with a long outdoor gallery running in front of the apartments and enclosed stairways at the ends. At some point before construction, design changes eliminated the galleries and end stairs. They were replaced by pass-through spaces with skeletal stairs and railings that helped open the buildings to the site. Each open stairway and landing served four apartments. Further alterations included minor changes to kitchen and bathroom locations in the one- and two bedroom units and the removal of what look like stuccoed gallery walls in the drawing (Fig. 7).11

Fig. 9: Detail of married student housing area of Eero Saarinen plan for North Campus. “The University of Michigan Outgrows Its Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan,” p. 132. This diagram represents Northwood I, as built. See Fig. 10 for a partial floor plan

Despite being in a different journal from the 1953 North Campus article, this story’s editors again frustrated readers with discordant images for Yamasaki’s married student housing site. On the same page, the Architectural Record presented a photograph of a model that corresponds—at least in the married housing area— with the 1953 plan, and beneath it a site plan drawing that disagrees with the model above (Figs. 8-9). In this case the plan was again accurate, depicting the six structures of Northwood I as they were being built.

Upon completion, married students occupying Northwood I had a choice between one- or two-bedroom apartments, but the three kinds of buildings weren’t the same inside. The L- and U-buildings were similar, with occupants entering their apartments via the pass-through stairs placed between each set of back-to-back units (Fig. 10). In some cases the rooms had rather generous proportions for mass housing (an 18’ x 11’4” living room), but these were offset by predictably cramped spaces (a 3’ x 5’ kitchen). The I-buildings, however, held side-by-side, two-story, two-bedroom apartments. Plans show dining, living, and kitchen areas downstairs and bedrooms above (Fig. 11). Students living in the I-buildings walked directly into their units from ground level (Fig. 12). None of the buildings in Northwood I contained galleries or individual porches or balconies — all features of Yamasaki’s public housing lauded by critics — and no awnings (or patios); these omissions marred the complex’s sleek modernist lines.

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Fig. 10 (top): Typical floor plan, L- or U-building, Northwood I. “Campus Housing in New and Varied Patterns, Architectural Record 120 (Aug. 1956), p. 193.

Fig. 11 (left): Typical floor plan, I-building, Northwood II. “Campus Housing in New and Varied Patterns,” p. 193.

Fig. 12 (right): I-buildings, Northwood I. Photograph by author, 2019. On the left is the rear of an I-building; on the right are the entries to another. These are slightly different from the I-buildings in Northwood I.

In keeping with the theme that dominates the Northwood commission, Yamasaki subtly varied the buildings of this first phase. Although the two L- and two U-shaped buildings are the same size, the two I-buildings differ, with one almost twenty feet longer than the other. Further, the I-buildings are slightly narrower, most likely to accommodate the two-story layout.

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Northwood II Yamasaki altered his approach for Northwood II, the second set of marriedstudent apartment buildings. The site occupied about thirty acres just west and north of Northwood I and included the same rolling, partly wooded landscape as its predecessor, although north of Bishop Street the land was steeper than elsewhere (Figs. 4 and 21). LYH’s architects were thinking of ways to achieve a better integration of building and site when the university requested that the next phase of construction be less expensive. In response, Yamasaki’s team retained a few of the I-buildings but relied on a new type, a compact scheme made of four apartments back-to-back on two levels. These buildings’ smaller scale allowed Yamasaki to weave open space through the site, in some places making informal courtyards in the same manner as the contemporary Gratiot Redevelopment Project (Fig. 13). He’d described the latter in words that could be equally applied to Northwood II: “most of the low buildings will face inward on sets of common play yards for children, a cellular type of neighborhood.” 12

In the end, Yamasaki’s Northwood II plan synthesized Northwood I and the Gratiot project, leading to the only heterogeneous portion of the married student complex. Northwood II’s thirty-five apartment buildings partly envelop their predecessor on the site, occupying territory to the immediate west and north.

For the northern part, Yamasaki duplicated one of Northwood I’s triplets and settled it on slightly lower ground next to the existing two. Even here one can see a slight variation, as the Northwood II’s triplet eliminated the L-building, using only one I- and two U-buildings. These U-buildings also were slightly longer and thinner than the earlier versions. North of Bishop Street and west of Cram Circle, Yamasaki used only this I-building type, placed along the street and following the contour.

Fig. 13: “Six-Family Court Units,” Gratiot Redevelopment Project. “Urban Neighborhood Redevelopment,” Progressive Architecture 36 (Aug. 1955), p.

101. This more detailed diagram of the site plan that appears in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 14 (top left): Diagram of the central portion of Northwood II. Redrawn from MapWashtenaw (gisappsecure.ewashtenaw.org).

Fig. 15 (top right): Northwood II buildings. Photograph by author, 2019.

Fig. 16 (bottom left): Northwood II building with eight apartments. Photograph by author, 2019.

Fig. 17 (bottom right): Northwood II eightplex apartment building, second-floor plan. “Campus Housing in New and Varied Patterns,” p. 193.

The bulk of Northwood II lies west of Northwood I and consists of twenty-one apartment buildings and five service structures, making almost 300 new units.13 This new area appears at first glance to be much less organized. However, an invisible grid pattern of north-south columns and east-west rows can be discerned upon closer examination of the plan (Fig. 14). The buildings are aligned in this grid, and they’re also clustered into five-building groups resembling the face of a die, with four unattached buildings making a square and a fifth in the center. On the ground, however, one doesn’t perceive any order to the arrangement—these buildings seem scattered among the trees, with the many sidewalks organizing the spaces more than the structures (Fig. 15).

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Yamasaki had established an aesthetic language for Northwood I that relied on a nearly flat, overhanging roof and the visual contrast between brick wall planes and vertical window/spandrel strips of glass and light-colored metal.

For Northwood II, he applied it again with additional borrowings from his contemporary houses in the Detroit suburbs. The eightplex buildings employed a slightly gabled, overhanging roof like Yamasaki’s Abraham Becker house (1951) in Huntington Woods and offered more window area, since their design provided each apartment with windows in adjacent walls (Fig. 16). To further distinguish Northwood II from its predecessor, the architects used a slightly different colored brick.

The eightplex type called for a new entry system, so foyers are located at each end (Fig. 17). Residents entered their apartment from a foyer, marked by a wide vertical glass strip stretching from ground to roof (one of Yamasaki’s favorite tendencies, visible in Wayne State University’s McGregor Memorial Conference Center (1955-58)). Stairs led down a half-level to the first floor or up to the second. Inside were different configurations of one-bedroom apartments that tended to vary in the placement of the kitchen or the size of the bedroom.

Northwood III By 1955, when Northwood I was finished, the full impact of higher education’s enrollment crisis was being felt in Ann Arbor and elsewhere. In January the university asked the state legislature for $12 million to cover a new expansion program to facilitate its recent growth, including $9 million for new construction.

Northwood II was part of that proposal. At the same time, the U.S. Office of Education outlined an immediate need for $6 billion of construction to erase the persistent need for housing on college campuses.14 In an effort to help, Congress amended Title IV, which had proven extremely popular, to increase loan terms to fifty years, eliminate the need to search for comparable private financing, and lower interest rates to 2 ¾ percent maximum.15 While Northwood I and II added close to 400 new housing units for the university’s married student population, it failed to stem the rising tide of enrollment, and the university pushed through plans for a third Northwood section. The Board of Regents authorized the sale of $3.7 million in bonds for Northwood III during their October 1957 meeting. This final portion of married student housing would include 288 housing units: 144 one-bedroom units and 144 two-bedroom units.16

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For Northwood III, Yamasaki devised another new form to join the I-, U- and L-buildings and the eightplex in the Northwood design vocabulary. All eight buildings are quadrangles — four-sided, joined at the corners to enclose courtyards, and punctuated at their midpoints by pass-through stairways (Fig. 18). Like Northwood I the apartments were entered from the pass-through porch. Each side of the quadrangle had four apartments, two above and two below.

The buildings were organized into two groups in plan, each consisting of three square quadrangles next to a larger, rectangular quadrangle.

In earlier versions all of the buildings were square, but at some point before construction two of the squares were elongated into rectangles; this may have been done to insert more units.

Fig. 18 (top): Diagram of the Northwood III site plan, Redrawn from MapWashtenaw (gisappsecure. ewashtenaw.org).

Fig. 19: Northwood III. Photograph by author, 2019.

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The plan’s underlying grid pattern isn’t as easy to discern in this section, but it exists.

Although the structures occupy a grid in plan with approximately six east-west rows and eight north-south columns, the buildings are allowed to slip slightly outside their lanes to relieve some of the rigor that ordered Northwood II. Like Northwood II, however, none of these patterns are experienced on the site.

Fig. 20 and Fig. 6: Northwood III quadrangle, left; early version of Northwood I, right.

Photograph by author, 2019. Comparison of these two images shows formal similarities between Yamasaki’s first scheme and the final development of the project in Northwood III.

Outside the quadrangle walls Northwood III’s landscape appears more spacious than its predecessors, although this may be due to a relative absence of trees on the site. Generous spacing of the quadrangles allowed Yamasaki to work with the edge of the natural plateau. Consequently, some of the quadrangles are physically lower in the landscape, forcing one to encounter the ground in a manner unlike Northwest I-II (Fig. 19).

The Northwood III quadrangles are perhaps the closest to Yamasaki’s Gratiot idea of the “cellular neighborhood.” The buildings themselves are minor modifications of the Northwood I work, but the quadrangle form makes a significant difference. In the Northwood III courtyards one finds the only spaces in the entire married student complex devoted to gathering. These cloister-like areas, strictly bounded yet porous, invite residents to interact and linger (Fig. 20). The other Northwood sections inspire movement rather than repose, and lack outdoor gathering spaces.

In this final phase, variation once more surfaces in different guises. The architects changed the brick colors again and removed the overhang from the roof. Unexpectedly, the building footprints reveal even more variety. The seemingly square courtyards aren’t square in reality, and the two rectangular quadrangles are dissimilar in their length and width, with one at least twenty-five feet longer than the other.

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Fig. 21: Northwood Apartments, looking south: Aerial views then and now. GoogleEarth

Conclusion The initial design of all three sets of Northwood Married Student Apartments, including forty-nine apartment buildings of assorted sizes and nine service buildings, with an overall capacity of close to 700 units, was completed by the time Yamasaki’s office reorganized itself in the summer of 1955. HYL/YHL officially disbanded, with George Hellmuth remaining in St. Louis, along with Yamasaki’s chief assistant Gyo Obata, to form the internationally successful HOK. The other two-thirds of the partnership—now Yamasaki, Leinweber & Associates (YLA)— continued the Northwood work along with an increasingly ponderous workload attributable to Yamasaki’s rising stature. By the end of 1956, he would move into the national spotlight after receiving an AIA Honor Award for the St. LouisLambert Airport (as HYL) and an AIA Merit Award for the Feld Medical Clinic in Detroit (as YLA) in the same year. He also published his first articles in major architectural journals. High-profile commissions from the New York and New Haven Railroad Company, Wayne State University (the McGregor Conference Center), the Reynolds Metals Company, the American Concrete Institute, and the 46

U.S. government (U.S. Consulate in Kobe, Japan), followed in rapid succession as Northwood was in the finishing stages. The apartments would mark the end of Yamasaki’s “small-scale” work. In his future academic designs—at places like Harvard, Princeton, Oberlin, and Carleton College—he focused on salient academic buildings and shied away from housing, except for a few dormitories included in the Carleton master plan (1958-59). In a similar fashion, YLA began to eliminate public schools—once a mainstay of LYH—and single-family houses from its repertoire.

In the summer of 1956, the Architectural Record devoted an issue to “Multi-Family Housing,” including an article of case studies recognizing standout projects for different clientele. Of these seven overall notable examples, Minoru Yamasaki had designed or co-designed four of them: the Northwood Apartments and three of the four public housing complexes credited to HOK (the other examples were a public housing group in Brooklyn and housing for married and single students at Purdue University). The Northwood coverage generally was standard fare, covering the somewhat lesser work of a rising architect and heavily reliant on correspondence between Yamasaki and Architectural Record editor Emerson Gobel. But it captured the essence of the architect’s approach and the quality of the final work. “A beautiful site with gentle contours and large trees, which were saved, contributed heavily toward the final environment that the architects sought,” wrote an unnamed author (probably Gobel). “Open sections for entrances and stairs break up the rows of apartments and provide a see-through openness, not to mention covered porches beside each apartment.” 17 The Record also noted the deliberate steps taken by Yamasaki to distinguish Northwood’s three sections, not only in plan but in the buildings’ physical appearance. It was a goal for Yamasaki in all of his mass housing experiments. The PruittIgoe Apartments, for example, originally included low-rise townhouses along with tall towers before government restrictions forced drastic alterations, and Gratiot optimistically mixed single person courtyard houses, three-bedroom row houses, semi-detached houses with enclosed yards and commons, and fourbedroom single-family houses with its residential towers. Thus, at Northwood, “Exteriors were deliberately varied in fenestration as well as in brick colors, as part of the whole effort to avoid monotony.” 18 It’s this diversity of accommodations that stands out at Northwood. Instead of hundreds of identical units, Yamasaki strove to offer unique experiences for the residents of the three sections, avoiding the “cookie cutter” mentality of reproducing one design for ease and profit. Not only do the buildings differ but their landscapes do as well. Each phase at Northwood has a unique density of trees that interacts with the architecture; for example, the most wooded area (Northwood II) contains small individual buildings while the least forested area (Northwood III) is the most communal in terms of building design.

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Along with its variety, another strong feature of Northwood is this sensitive marriage of architecture and nature. The trees, which have proliferated since the complex first opened, now enhance the remote character of the site. (Fig. 21). At times the apartment complex seems far removed from the rest of the university, not just physically but psychologically. No other university buildings are in sight at Northwood. This quality hasn’t always been appreciated by the residents. The Northwood Apartments are over sixty years old and still in use, although now filled with single students rather than married couples and families. Northwood I-II offers housing for graduate students while Northwood III has been reserved for the overflow from oversubscribed undergrad dormitories since 2004.

Comments on apartment rating websites—usually by undergrads—tend to focus on aspects of Northwood’s physical and social isolation, particularly the distances to classes or dining halls and the lack of common spaces compared to the dormitories. And of course there are issues with the buildings being generically “old.” But many of the comments also applaud the apartments’ quiet pastoral character. And therein lies its charm. Northwood isn’t ideal by any means. The lack of outdoor gathering spaces in two of the three segments can be seen as a weakness. However, one should also consider its origins as apartment buildings for inward-focused couples—some of them older than the average student—who valued privacy perhaps more than young, single millennials who crave physical community alongside their extensive engagement with digital media. The postwar residents socialized in the service structures scattered throughout the apartments. Some of them had babies or young children. This was as close as they could get to the ever-popular dream of a single-family home while also pursuing an education. When Northwood opened in the fifties, it solved a desperate need for the university and provided a comfortable, slightly modern, slightly bucolic setting for young married couples, many in their first marital residence, including World War II veterans who may have appreciated the quiet elegance of Northwood more than today’s undergraduates.

End Notes 1 Between 1949 and 1955, the firm had two offices and were known as HYL in St. Louis and LYH in Detroit. Yamasaki oversaw design for both, and the stress of commuting back and forth between jobs affected his health so adversely that he was hospitalized at the end of 1953.

2 “Two Housing Projects,” Progressive Architecture 34 (Dec. 1953): 65-69.

3 “First Design Award, Urban Redevelopment, Detroit, Michigan,” Progressive Architecture 37 (Jan. 1956): 76-77; Eric Paul Mumford, Designing Urban Design: CIAM Architects and the Formation of a Discipline, 1937-69 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 128.

4 “At the University of Michigan, An Answer to Expansion,” Architectural Forum 98 (June 1953): 119, 121.

5 Richard G. Axt, The Federal Government and Financing Higher Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 136-137.

6 University of Michigan, Report of Statistical Service of the Registrar’s Office 1949-1950 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1950), 4.

7 Harold C. Riker, with Frank G. Lopez, College Students Live Here (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1961), n.p.

8 Axt, The Federal Government and Financing Higher Education, 136-137. The HHFA, which was the agency with authority over college housing, included both the PHA and the FHA from 1947-1965.

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9 “Colleges Vie for Federal Fund to Finance Dormitories at Under-the Market Interest,” Architectural Forum 96 (June 1952): 53.

10 Minoru Yamasaki to Emerson Gobel, 11 June 1956, Box 4, Folder 17, Minoru Yamasaki Papers, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University.

11 “The University of Michigan Outgrows Its Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan,” Architectural Record 117 (Jan. 1955): 132-138.

12 “Redevelopment f.o.b. Detroit,” Architectural Forum 102 (March 1955): 121.

13 There were numerous small service structures throughout Northwood containing community rooms and laundry areas.

14 “The University of Michigan Outgrows Its Campus,” 134.

15 “Colleges Rush to Apply for 2 ¾ % Loans Under Greatly Liberalized HHFA Program,” Architectural Forum 103 (Nov. 1955): 13.

16 University of Michigan, Proceedings of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1957), 264.

17 “Campus Housing in New and Varied Patterns, Architectural Record 120 (Aug. 1956): 193.

18 Ibid, 195.

By Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D. © All rights reserved September 18, 2019

ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Dale Allen Gyure Dale Allen Gyure, Ph.D., is Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University, where he teaches classes in architectural history and theory. Professor Gyure’s research focuses on nineteenth- and twentiethcentury architecture, particularly the intersections of architecture, education, and society. He recently published Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World, the first monograph on Yamasaki’s architecture.

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S U B M I S S I O N S | AWARDS 2020 The following 21 entries from 13 offices for the 2020 Honor Awards represent the many hours of work, creativity, and intelligent architectural solutions of the members of the Huron Valley AIA.

(left) Sketches by Emil Lorch, Teaching Notes Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Building Award- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

A3C Collaborative Architecture North Oaks Clubhouse Ann Arbor, MI A contemporary clubhouse designed as a community center just outside of downtown Ann Arbor, the building sits on a plinth overlooking natural wetlands that offer spectacular views of the native wildlife and vegetation.

Designed to marry the beautiful site with a contemporary aesthetic inspired by Ann Arbor’s rich Mid-Century Modern heritage, this project was designed to be respectful of both the natural habitat and the city’s architectural history.

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Quinn Evans Architects Allegan District Library Allegan, MI To visit the 2015 cramped library, patrons had to traverse up or down a narrow sidewalk, to a low mid-block entry on a 1970s addition that had expanded the 1914 Carnegie library. The updated river-inspired design flows down the hill, solving access issues and provides double the program space. Organized around a main stair, people and materials flow from the street entry into the main level, down to the lower level and out at grade to the parking and river.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Building Award- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

Quinn Evans Architects Crapo Building Bay City, MI The Crapo Building has undergone numerous drastic transformations for over a century. The historic landmark’s latest iteration is the Legacy, a mixed-use commercial and residential development renewed through traditional preservation methods and creative design skills. The historic facade remained hidden for decades, and in 2014 was in danger of being demolished. Public efforts saved the building, and its latest adaptation was launched in 2017.

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Quinn Evans Architects Wurlitzer Building Detroit, MI The Wurlitzer Building’s renewal contributes to downtown Detroit’s architectural and economic revitalization by adding a unique hospitality and retail experience in an iconic historic structure. The transformation of this 20thcentury Renaissance Revival building into a boutique hotel breathes new life into a blighted landmark, previously vacant for sevearl decades. The project is funded with Historic Preservation Tax Credits.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Building Award- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC Lutheran High School North Addition & Renovation Macomb, MI Lutheran High School North was a circa-1974 preengineered structure at full-capacity and needed to adapt in order to serve a new generation of students. This challenge was answered with a strategic new building and entry addition, along with a renovation of the existing cafeteria. This exciting, adaptive learning environment now welcomes over 500 students.

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Lewis Greenspoon Architects Hill & Adams Townhomes Ann Arbor, MI This four-unit student apartment building combines a contemporary aesthetic while respecting the traditional neighborhood context. The tall gabled dormers echo the scale and forms of typical residential elements while the overall composition and details create a modern expression of student housing. The four townhomes are arranged such that each occupies a corner, rather than a more typical row-house layout, making each unit equal.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Building Award- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

O|X Studio & Grace Ahn Designs The Circ Bar Ann Arbor, MI The Circ Bar has layers of history dating back to 1853. When the new owners purchased the business in 2016, they set in motion a plan to extensively remodel and rebrand each of the unique interior spaces. The Circ Bar emerged as a modern, upscale bar with a rustic, mellow vibe. A VIP bar and roof deck were redesigned at the back, and a small apartment was transformed into a lounge with a second bar that affords views through a full height window wall.

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Hobbs+Black Architects Phoenix Children’s Hospital West Pavilion Phoenix, AZ Phoenix Children’s Hospital West Pavilion addresses a number of service lines in need of expansion, especially the Emergency Dept. Architecture for the West Pavilion reflects the existing hospital campus character. The exterior provides a combination of interest with layers of building skin unfolding. An outdoor garden is afforded near the ED entrance offering an area of respite countering the known anxiety of an emergency department.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Building Award- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

Daniels and Zermack Architects Michigan State University Federal Credit Union HQ2 East Lansing, MI The design for the MSU Federal Credit Union HQ2 provides the sense of permanence and stability associated with financial institutions while offering a contemporary and future-facing environment needed to attract a new generation of clientele and excite employees from around the country. The deep window recesses were created to replicate older institutional buildings, punctuated by the abrupt, contrasting gestures of the green-glass center-hub.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Low Budget/Small Project- New Construction, Addition or Renovation under 3,500 SF & $1M

Synecdoche Design Ann Arbor Pharmacy Ann Arbor, MI Set in the ubiquitous shopping center, Ann Arbor Pharmacy is a balance of neighborhood pharmacist and boutique health retail. The aqua interior unifies the space between pharmacy and retail with an ambient halcyon tone. The open concept pharmacy removes the phamacist from behind the glass partition often seen in typical layouts and out into the open space. Synecdoche fabricated all of the white oak items for a cohesive detailed retail component.

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Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC Crust-Bakery Renovation & Expansion Fenton, MI This addition and renovation aimed to resolve the pressing need for additional space as well as to provide a personalized face to broadcast the bakery’s presence within the Fenton community. Due to rapid growth and demand, new key programs included warehouse/ production spaces, accessory offices, an employee break room, a commerical kitchen, updated retail space, and a dining experience space with beverage bar.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Residential- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

Charles Bultman Moser Craig Residence New Sewickley, PA As old wood barns vanish from the American landscape, a small number of architects are embracing these unwanted barns as diamonds-in-the-rough, and are saving them by converting them to new uses. This new construction home was built using the reclaimed lumber of a timer-framed barn circa 1850, salavaged from the client’s property in Ann Arbor, MI. The exterior siding is new wood treated with a Japanese charring process, Shou Sugi Ban.

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Studio Z Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright Inspired Ranch Saline, MI The original 1970s ranch home was built by a father-andson team who had strong appreciation for Frank Lloyd Wright’s work and finish carpentry skills. New owners sought to renovate the master bathroom, which was completely open to the master bedroom and also had several stairs. Respecting the style of the home, the floor was raised flush, a new roof and vaulted ceiling emerged, and private space was carved out for the master bathroom.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Residential- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

Studio Z Architecture Modern Chef’s Kitchen Ann Arbor, MI This original Robert Metcalf home featured his well-known 1960s galley kitchen which was no longer sufficient for its new owners. The small kitchen area was expanded with an 8’ wide addition to the south side, switching the kitchen and dining area to provide a better view of the backyard from the dining room. The additions were carefully designed to fit seamlessly with the existing house, matching interior and exterior trim details, overhangs, and siding.

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Angelini & Associates Architects House on the Arb Ann Arbor, MI Sited on the last open parcel on the rim of the Nichols Arboretum, our clients’ dream was a home that would allow them to “follow the sun” throughout the day. They also challenged us to design a home with a variety of spaces that they would enjoy and use daily, without wasted space.

The solution was an “H” plan anchored by a stair tower and elevator which allows the garage to step up to the house as grade does and allow accessibility for aging in place.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Residential- New Construction, Addition, or Renovation

KASE Builders with Sharon Haar Transparent Ann Arbor, MI Transparent connects two domestic conditions, home and home office above a garage, via a covered walkway to protect from weather. The geometry negotiates a significant elevation drop within the tight confines of property setback lines. A powder room, bistro nook, and a circulation route are incorporated into the proposal which emphasizes lightness, transparency, and materiality to both promote views to the original historic house, yet also differentiate it.

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KASE Builders Ping Pong Porch Ann Arbor, MI Ping pong porch extends the interior living space into a semi-interior volume which rises towards adjacent trees to accommodate a ping-pong match. The formal proposal orients itself off the existing living room and out towards the new patio and yard space. The sensorial material palette of western red cedar and laser cut weathering steel differentiates this addition from the existing house, while also contrasting the addition’s interior and exterior.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Interior Architecture/Detail- Commercial, Institutional

Synecdoche Design IVEY Ann Arbor, MI A studio with 14’ tall ceilings and 50’ of north facing windows. It’s a dream for any artist unless that artist also requires mirrors and mounting surfaces for tools of the trade- a hair stylist. As a white-boxed space, the challenge was to resolve the details through custom fabricated furniture pieces which could be placed in the space after construction. All of the services and experiences of the salon happen within these components.

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O|X Studio Olentangy River Brewing Company Lewis Center, OH Olentangy River Brewing Company repurposed a 1980s warehouse and office building into a unique craft brewing experience. The taproom, with expansive windows on 3 sides, creates an open and dynamic space that connects visually and physically to its surroundings. Simple elegant materials; wood, concrete, and tile, offer users a warm and welcoming experience. The polished concrete floors are functional and tie into the industrial nature of the space.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D S S UB M I S S I O N S Interior Architecture/Detail- Commercial, Institutional

Hobbs+Black Architects Blue Llama Jazz Club Ann Arbor, MI Originally built between 1916-1925; the Blue Llama Jazz Club renovation focused on a fresh design of the bar, kitchen, unique restrooms, optimal stage viewing, and custom finishes. The resulting design created an expanded kitchen and food service program, a new VIP entrance, and a sophisticated curvilinear floor and ceiling plan with complex detailing. Particular attention was given to acoustical design for this project.

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U of M Student Life Auxiliary Capital Projects Trotter Multicultural Center Ann Arbor, MI Located in the heart of campus, the center serves students of all identities. The creation of TMC was a direct result of student activism, and that student energy powers the design. Vibrant colors, bold graphics, and flexibile furniture create an interior that tells the past of Trotter and creates a sense of belonging within students. The building features a multipurpose room, meeting rooms, lounge spaces, a quiet zone, student workspaces, and staff offices.

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W I N N E R S | AWARDS 2020

And the winners are...

Thank you to our AIA neighbors to the west for volunteering as the jury. Your insights and commentary on our work are very much appreciated.

Congratulations to the 2020 Awards Winners!

(left) Sketches by Emil Lorch, Teaching Notes Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D W I N N E R Building Award- New Construction North Oaks Clubhouse A3C Collaborative Architecture Ann Arbor, MI AR Brouwer

A contemporary clubhouse designed as a community center just outside of downtown Ann Arbor, the building sits on an elevated plinth overlooking natural wetlands that offer spectacular views of the native wildlife and vegetation. Designed to marry the beauty of the site with a contemporary aesthetic inspired by Ann Arbor’s rich MidCentury Modern heritage, this project was designed to be respectful of both the natural habitat and the city’s architectural history.

A program developed to provide all of the modern amenities of today’s residential community centers with a function flexibility that enriches its neighborhood ensure that this three-story facility will remain a community resource for decades to come. Sensitive site placement, community engagement, and expansive views inform the overall design of the North Oaks Clubhouse. Natural materials and dramatic experiential transition combine to create a compelling recreational space and enduring community jewel.

Clean sharp shapes with great coloring.

The massive plinth & restrained entry were successful.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D W I N N E R Low Budget/Small Project- Addition and Renovation under 3,500 SF & $1M Crust- Bakery Renovation & Expansion Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC Fenton, MI Bren Mar Construction Company

This addition and renovation proposal aimed to resolve our client’s pressing need for additional square footage, as well as to provide a personalized face to broadcast the bakery’s presence within the Fenton community. Crust, having rapidly grown in popularity and demand since its inception, is recognized for its superior baked goods. Upon determining that Crust had accumulated a greated demand than its pre-construction facility could realistically serve, planning efforts began to converge for this extensive project proposal. Key programs designated to be provided included -- warehouse/ production spaces, accessory offices, an employee break room, a commercial kitchen, updated retail space and a dining experience space with beverage bar.

Unifying the bakery’s existing structure with the proposed addition was achieved by balancing the facility’s existing second story mass with a raised clerestory of a similar visual weight. To further enforce this connection, corrugated paneling acts as a transitional element between masses, in addition to discreetly functioning as a concealed emergency exit alcove. As well as functioning as a transitional element between masses, the strikingly yellow corrugated metal acts as an expression of bakery itself. Since its establishment, members of the Fenton community have recognized this vibrant visual hue as a reflection of the bakery’s energetic atmosphere.

Bold, definitive yellow statement brought new & old to the forefront.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D W I N N E R Residential- New Construction House on the Arb Angelini & Associates Architects Ann Arbor, MI Ib V. Jensen and Sons, Inc.

Our clients’ dream was a home that would allow them to “follow the sun” throughout the day and the seasons. They also challenged us to design a home with a variety of spaces and rooms that they would use and enjoy daily, without wasted areas that would be used infrequently. The site was the last open site on the rim of the Nichols Arboretum and had the potential for wonderful views. However, the site rose up steeply to the rim of the Arb and was heavily treed, with the rear yard setback line still well below where one can see into the Arb, presenting challenges for views, handicapped access, and natural light. The solution was to use an “H” plan anchored by a stair tower and elevator, which allows the garage and house to step up the hill and then it opens toward the Arb with a courtyard.

Energy efficiency was a high priority and the home includes triple glazed windows in the main living spaces, highly insulated walls and roofs with a secondary thermal break layer on the exterior, and a high efficiency wood burning fireplace to utilize the trees that were removed, along with geothermal wells under the driveway.

Vertical wood plays off the tall trees around the site.

Loved the levels & details. Clean views.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D W I N N E R Residential- Addition or Renovation Ping Pong Porch KASE Builders Ann Arbor, MI KASE Builders

Ping Pong Porch extends the interior living space into a semi-interior volume which rises towards adjacent trees to accommodate a pingpong match. The sloped roof is in conversation with the existing building form, and contracts with a visual pause of flat roof which covers space for the intimate act of dining and conversation while watching the morning sunrise. The sensorial material palette of western red cedar and laser cut weathering steel differentiates this addition from the existing house, while also contrasting the addition’s interior and exterior. The cedar emits a rich aroma, further imprinting the space upon one’s memory, while both primary materials register time via their patina. A series of thin structural steel columns promote transparent views to the extensive backyard and a thickened, opaque shear diaphragm in the west wall and roof provides structural stability. All storm water landing on the addition is collected on the roof and piped underground to a newly constructed rain garden. A cedar deck and brick patio extend the living space into the landscape along an axis of overlapping rectangles from the existing house, addition and deck.

Great concept, great contrast between in & out.

Very successful design form & materials. Great connection to outdoors.

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2 0 2 0 A I A H V A W A R D W I N N E R Interior Architecture/Detail- Commercial Blue Llama Jazz Club Hobbs+Black Architects Ann Arbor, MI Contracting Resources

Originally built between 1916 and 1925; the Blue Llama Jazz Club renovation focused on a fresh design of the bar, kitchen, unique restrooms, optimal stage viewing, and custom finishes. The resulting design created an expanded kitchen and food service program, a new VIP entrance, and a sophisticated curvilinear floor and ceiling plan with complex detailing.

The exterior facade was designed to reflect a modern approach on an art deco aesthetic for a classic jazz venue. Similarly, the interior balances timeless and sophisticated design through layers of fine detail, texure, and lighting. Various seating types and flexible seating arrangements give the venue the ability to adjust gues accommodations.

Particular attention was given to acoustical design for this project.

Care to isolate sounds from outside was critical. Additionally, special care was given to fine tuning the interior acoustics to create the optimal sound within the space to a level suitable for recording sessions of performances.

This is designed. Wow! Sculpted forms & fabulous material detailing. Jazzy through & through!

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EUGENE HOPKINS DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD Heather Graham Lewis The Eugene Hopkins Distinguished Service Award honors a chapter member who has clearly demonstrated distinguished and outstanding service to the AIA. Congratulations to Heather Graham Lewis for receiving this honor.

Heather shares her passion for her work as Architectural Manager at the University of Michigan. She is also an active member in the AIA Huron Valley Chapter as a past president, past board member, and continuing chapter volunteer. Her leadership as AIA Huron Valley president included the development of some of our first continuing education classes including the first major all-day continuing education event, a building science seminar with national speaker, Joseph Lstiburek which drew roughly 100 attendees. Recently, Heather has worked to provide access for CEU tours of the University of Michigan buildings, generously giving her time Heather’s professional activities and achievements include: Board Member, AIA Huron Valley, 1996-2002 • Treasurer, 1996-1997 • Vice President, 1998 • President, 1999 • Past President, 2000 Young Architect Award, AIA Huron Valley, 2000 Board Member, AIA Michigan, 2001-2002 Member, Academy of Architecture for Health, 1995-present • Codes & Standards Committee Member, AAH, 2017-2019 • AAH/ACHA (American College of Healthcare Architects) Summer Leadership Summit, 2015, 2017-2018 Member, University of Michigan Building Code Committee, 2006-present Member, American Society for Healthcare Engineering, 2014-present Member, National Fire Protection Association, 2014-present Board Member, Ann Arbor Zoning Board of Appeals, 2013-2018 Member, Black Lake Preservation Society, 2017-present

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FOUNDERS’ AWARD FOR LEADERSHIP Bradford L. Angelini The Founders’ Award for Leadership recognizes a member whose leadership has exceeded the high standards of service and whose dedication has elevated the standing of the Huron Valley AIA within the profession. Congratulations to Bradford L. Angelini for receiving this honor.

Brad Angelini initiated the tradition of publishing “AWARDS” with the 2018 Honor Awards, when serving on the AIAHV board where he saw the possibility of making a difference in our architectural community. His determination and vision have resulted in three consecutive highquality publications that explore architectural themes relevant to our local environment, as well as to the wider state and national level. The “AWARDS” issues have elevated the standard of local architectural work as both the award entries and the winners are documented and commemorated.

AWARDS has also been an opportunity for local architects, historians, and educators to come together to discuss, debate, edit, and publish architectural ideas. This publication has also served as a promotional tool for fundraising, which has made AIAHV visible and relevant to other trade professionals and suppliers. It has made AIAHV visible to the broader public and increased the awareness of architecture in our community as well. Brad has set a high standard of leadership and we intend to continue his example in publishing the “AWARDS” issues in the coming years.

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Sharon Haar Congratulations to Sharon Haar for receiving her Fellowship from The American Institute of Architects for 2019.

Through her professional and academic service, Sharon Haar directs explorations into how disciplinary knowledge production in the academy supports innovations in architectural practice. She serves on the AIA’s Higher Education Advisory Group, consisting of nominated representatives from each of the seven regions of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and on the board of AIAHV. She is the former Reviews Editor for the Journal of Architectural Education and co-chaired the 2016 ACSA Annual Conference. Whether building high school programs or convening conversations around architectural education in research institutions, she leads the narrative on the value of architecture in creating social, economic, and cultural change.

As Chair of the Architecture Program at Taubman College at the University of Michigan and in her previous administrative roles at the School of Architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Parsons School of Design, Sharon Haar has served the architectural academy through her ability to unite diverse constituencies of students, faculty, and interdisciplinary teams towards the goal of advancing the impact of architecture on the built environment. Haar emphasizes community and urban design and the integration of technology and technical capacities in her teaching. The courses she has developed and taught and the innovations in curricular design and extracurricular programming she has directed serve as national and international models. She lectures across the United States, Latin America, Asia, and Europe on both her own scholarship and on contemporary developments in architectural education.

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

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With sincere appreciation to the Architectural Photographers who capture the essence of our work thorough their commitment to composition and detail.

A3C Collaborative Architecture North Oaks Clubhouse: Curt Clayton Angelini & Associates Architects House on the Arb: Jeff Garland Photography Charles Bultman Moser Craig Residence: Charles Bultman Daniels & Zermack Architects Michigan State University Federal Credit Union HQ2: M-Buck Studio, LLC Hobbs+Black Architects Phoenix Children’s Hospital West Pavillion: David Schacher Photography Blue Llama Jazz Club: John D’Angelo Photography KASE Builders Ping Pong Porch: Sean Carter Photography KASE Builders with Sharon Haar Transparent: Sean Carter Photography Lewis Greenspoon Architects Hill & Adams Townhomes: Bob Miller Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC Lutheran High School North Addition & Reno: Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC & Lutheran High School Association (LHSA) Crust-Bakery Reno & Expansion: Lindhout Associates Architects, AIA PC, Bren-Mar Construction Company, and Crust- a baking company O|X Studio Olentangy River Brewing Company: Trevor Boyle O|X Studio & Grace Ahn Designs The Circ Bar: Trevor Boyle Quinn Evans Architects Allegan District Library: Justin Machonochie Crapo Building Exterior Photography: Andy Rogers Interior Photography: Jeff Hildebrant Wurlitzer Building Exterior Photography: Justin Machonochie Interior Photography: Christian Harder Studio Z Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright Inspired Ranch & Modern Chef’s Kitchen: ERI Creative, Emily Rose Chene Synecdoche Design Ann Arbor Pharmacy & IVEY: Synecdoche Design U of M Student Life Auxiliary Capital Projects Trotter Multicultural Center: Austin Thomason