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Detroit has a number of vacant parcels—the question is what to do with them?
Head to Core City, a Detroit neighborhood just west of Midtown, and stop at 4475 15th Street for an idea. At first glance, the five new buildings there look almost out of context; most houses in Core City are made of wood and have pitched roofs. These new houses are indeed different—they conjure the estate in Mexico City Juan O’Gorman designed for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, or maybe even John Hejduk’s Kreuzberg Tower and Wings in Berlin.
The Canopy is the latest residential project by EC3. The architecture firm worked with local developer and landscape firm Prince Concepts and Studio Detroit on the project. The development team said The Canopy was vastly influenced by Mies van der Rohe’s Detroit townhouses at Lafayette Park and Albert Kahn’s Continental Motors plant. Donald Judd’s exhibition spaces in Marfa, Texas were another point of reference.
EC3 was the design architect, Prince Concepts the developer, and Studio Detroit the executive architect. (This was the same team that built True North, another multifamily complex in Core City, not far from The Canopy, completed in 2017.) The Canopy consists of five duplexes scattered throughout a 17,000-square-foot land parcel.
In total, there’s 7,220 square feet of living space at The Canopy, spread across the five buildings, each with its own unique color palette and profile—one is a shade of light green while another was faced with bright red paint. The development has a mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units. Victor Reyes, a local Detroit artist, was invited to paint murals on The Canopy’s roofs.
In Good Company
The development has 10 units and 10,000 square feet of garden area with 121 trees. The stucco buildings sit nicely above a lush, verdant landscape. By breaking up the development into different massings, EC3 was able to break away from conventional multifamily buildings with single-loaded corridors.
Stone pathways and plant beds populate the green space beneath the five structures. This greenery contrasts nicely with the biophilic interior finishes indoors, which go a long way during the tough Detroit winters.
Edwin Chan, EC3’s founder, spent years working for Frank Gehry, having led some of Gehry Partners’ most significant cultural projects including Guggenheim Bilbao and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Chan eventually set off on his own and founded EC3 in 2012.
Chan brought his experience working on high-profile cultural projects to The Canopy, he said. “Our team approached this as a cultural project to emphasize public place-making and using the architecture to provide a context for the landscape,” Chan shared.
Every unit at The Canopy has a terrace and porch. They also come complete with French balconies, which helps with cross-ventilation. The elevated exterior nooks overlook the trees and shrubbery down below. The fenestrations change from thin ribbon windows to large, squarish ones.
All of this natural light is thanks to EC3’s decision to break up the massings into different volumes.
High-end fixtures, oak wood floors, and custom birch millwork make up much of the interiors. These features contrast nicely with the eclectic furniture selections residents opted for: A mix of early 20th-century modernist design and late modern, midcentury sensibilities, discernible in the simple wood shelving and cabinetry.
This project marks the completion of phase one at The Canopy. Phase two will yield another 7 duplexes that contain 14 units.