Call For Entries: A new Skyline for the City of Detroit

Published on October 05, 2020

YAC -Young Architects Competitions- and Manni Group launch DETROIT WATERFRONT DISTRICT, a competition of ideas aiming to shape a new skyline for the city of Detroit by designing its future leisure and entertainment core.

The competition is in collaboration with the Sterling Group and supported by TATA Steel, as a sponsor for a special mention to award the proposal that will better interact with its construction technologies.

A cash prize of € 20,000 will be distributed to the winning proposals selected by an international jury panel comprised of, among others: Daniel Libeskind, Marie Larsen (3XN), Giulio Rigoni (BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group), Rodrigo Duque Motta, Marcos Rosello (aLL Design), Jean Paul Uzabakiriho (Mass Design Group), Jorge P. Silva (Aires Mateus), Clive Wilkinson, Adolfo Suárez (Lombardini22), Giovanni De Niederhausern (Pininfarina).

A new skyline for the city of Detroit

This is a story that few people are happy to tell. It is a story that shining downtown skyscrapers hide. However, the deep wounds on the huge body of Detroit prove that it happened and still endures: countless battered dwellings, empty streets and abandoned buildings scar the city.

It is difficult to tell how “the arsenal of democracy” –which is how Detroit was known as in the early 1940s- transformed into the largest modern-day ghost city. Yet, history is full of contrasts. The pendulum of time often changes its direction. Time and again, where a void is created an opportunity arises.

Indeed, over the last years, strong winds of change have been whipping the city. They have blown the fog of the past away and dispersed the mist of decay stifling Detroit’s development for decades. As a result, many of the voids within the city – the wounds generated by depopulation and economic crisis- turned into new epicenters of urban regeneration. They became a valuable canvas to paint new masterpieces of contemporary architecture.

Detroit Waterfront District focuses precisely on the most fascinating canvas of all: the urban void overlooking the river amid downtown skyscrapers. Detroit Waterfront District is the competition promoted by Manni Group in collaboration with Sterling Group to design the future leisure and entertainment heart of the city of Detroit.

Architects will work on the area where the Joe Luis Arena stood, beside the place where- according to tradition- Detroit’s founding fathers landed. Participants will have the opportunity to design a building complex to redefine the city skyline. They will generate superb architecture masterpieces to become the symbol of the revival of one of the most iconic and controversial cities of the history of the United States of America.