A New Federal Project
With Zago Architecture for the Venice Bienalle 2016.
Project Team: Andrew Zago, Laura Bouwman, Nan Yen Chen, Andrew Adzemovic, Begum Baysun, Carrie Li, Kazuhiro Okamoto, Shao Wen Tou, Linbo Xie, Ida Sara Zago
Zago architecture responds to the Obama administration recent decision to increase the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States by proposing a program to settle 68,000 refugees in Detroit over a nine-year period. Deploying novel architectural forms as a means of direct political engagement, the architects project architectural agendas onto broad urban problems like immigration to make a positive contribution to the city.
A New Federal Project moved beyond modern planning’s imagines collectives to address the
awkward yet liberating coexistence of new constituencies. It proposes a constellation of
differences, not just different architectural objects or urban fields to contain those objects but also occasions for these features to leap across categorical boundaries of scale, hierarchy and material to perform unexpected urban roles. In this emancipation of categories, fields and objects splinter and masquerade as one another, with leitmotifs of the grid, the lattice and the filigree holding them together. The five new buildings arranged around and near the Dequindre cut house new refugee services and public functions. Over time, the structures are repurposed to hose programs for all Detroiters.
With Zago Architecture for the Venice Bienalle 2016.
Project Team: Andrew Zago, Laura Bouwman, Nan Yen Chen, Andrew Adzemovic, Begum Baysun, Carrie Li, Kazuhiro Okamoto, Shao Wen Tou, Linbo Xie, Ida Sara Zago
Zago architecture responds to the Obama administration recent decision to increase the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States by proposing a program to settle 68,000 refugees in Detroit over a nine-year period. Deploying novel architectural forms as a means of direct political engagement, the architects project architectural agendas onto broad urban problems like immigration to make a positive contribution to the city.
A New Federal Project moved beyond modern planning’s imagines collectives to address the
awkward yet liberating coexistence of new constituencies. It proposes a constellation of
differences, not just different architectural objects or urban fields to contain those objects but also occasions for these features to leap across categorical boundaries of scale, hierarchy and material to perform unexpected urban roles. In this emancipation of categories, fields and objects splinter and masquerade as one another, with leitmotifs of the grid, the lattice and the filigree holding them together. The five new buildings arranged around and near the Dequindre cut house new refugee services and public functions. Over time, the structures are repurposed to hose programs for all Detroiters.
