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Architects: Civilian Projects
- Area: 270000 ft²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Brian W. Ferry
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Architect of Record: Gensler
Overview. New York-based studio Civilian has acted as an architectural design consultant and overseen the interior design for Newlab at Michigan Central, housed in The Book Depository building, an Art Deco landmark designed by the Detroit-based architect Albert Kahn in 1936.
Operated by Michigan Central and Newlab, Civilian has transformed the building into a state-of-the-art innovation hub to house hundreds of entrepreneurs and inventors focused on the development of new sustainable and equitable solutions to the most pressing challenges at the intersection of mobility and society. When it opens in spring 2023, Newlab at Michigan Central will become the first major piece of a larger civic and urban redevelopment plan and overall vision to create a new mobility innovation district around Detroit’s Michigan Central Train Station. A longstanding collaborator of Newlab, Civilian Nicko Elliott oversaw the interiors of Newlab’s first New York space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and at 77 Washington Street.
Inspiration. In approaching the ambitious adaptive reuse project, Civilian worked in dialogue with Kahn’s architecture and the corporate modernist design heritage of the region. The studio has developed a design language that pays homage to the building’s history while making legible the groundbreaking work done by the engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs that will occupy its collaborative workspaces. Civilian aimed to create an environment that highlights Kahn’s influence in the region as well as his foundational role in shaping the look of the modern world.
In the early twentieth century, Albert Kahn's Ford factory buildings were widely published internationally and were profoundly influential on the European avant-garde, who were taken by the rationally proportioned structure, lack of ornamentation, straightforward material expression, and oversized expanses of windows. At the time of The Book Depository's construction, Kahn's design influence was widely evident internationally, from exhibitions associated with the Bauhaus to the work of designers like Charlotte Perriand.
Design Scheme. Civilian has worked with architecture firm Gensler, who acted as Architect of Record and oversaw the meticulous core-and-shell renovation of the long-abandoned Book Depository building. The 270,000 sq ft, three-story structure, originally designed as a mail sorting station, later became book storage for Detroit’s public schools. Its delicately detailed brick façade, heavily patinated concrete interior, and rigid grid of martini cap columns have informed the spatial and material sensibility of the interiors. Throughout the project, Civilian strove to create unexpected programmatic adjacencies and visual connections between production spaces and work and amenity spaces to foster collaboration and connection.
Upon entering the facility one is greeted by a prefabricated rosewood and pressed stainless steel reception desk which is installed around a martini-glass column. The adjoining waiting area overlooks a 2,000 sq ft exhibition space, entered through a gate of three 12' stainless steel and ribbed glass doors, which will focus on the next generation of mobility innovation in Michigan. The planes making up the interior space are held off the existing architecture creating a literally porous space with a visual connection to adjacent program spaces and base building while telegraphing outward the work taking place within the Newlab community.
At the heart of the project lies a 200-seat event space overlooking a state-of-the-art 11,000 sq ft robotics and prototyping facility. By opening the four 20' x 15' lift doors - which were maximally scaled to fit between the columns - the event space transforms into a porous storytelling and education space through dynamic programming for the local community at large. Linking the prototyping facility and the exhibition space are two open studio spaces with desking, lounge spaces, meeting and conference rooms, and classrooms.
One floor up, Civilian created a year-round interior tree-fern park with lounge seating and worktables in the new double-height atrium space. The 2nd floor contains additional open studio and amenity spaces along with closed private studios. The third floor similarly contains a mix of private and open studio spaces along with a private lounge. The basement of the building is connected to the Michigan Central campus by a tunnel and provides dedicated garage studio spaces, along with open studios and lounges.
Furniture. Throughout the project, Civilian combined American design classics from Michigan-based furniture brand MillerKnoll with a carefully considered selection of refinished vintage furniture, and commissioned contemporary pieces.
Complementing the architectural approach and furniture selection concept, Civilian designed a series of bespoke tables and storage cabinets, especially for the project. The robust solid ash and laminate pieces draw heavily from the work of 1930s furniture designers whose fascination with Fordist mass production and interest in the combination of machined finishes, laminates, and natural materials influenced the design vocabulary of the modern world since.
