2017 Best of Design Award for Residential – Multi-Unit: True North
Designer: EC3
Location: Detroit, Michigan
True North is a development comprised of nine rental units and shared community gardens located two-and-a-half miles from Downtown Detroit in a quiet, spacious neighborhood. It has received widespread recognition for pioneering creative, affordable design attuned to its community. For aesthetic and economic reasons, the client challenged the architect to utilize Quonset Huts, a prefabricated lightweight structure consisting of corrugated galvanized steel and having a semicircular cross section. The placement of the huts balances openness and security, views and privacy, socializing and solitude. Each structure is assembled on top of a four-inch concrete slab with in-floor radiant heat, which is also the unit’s finished floor. The end walls feature custom steel framing around polycarbonate panels that provide a higher level of security, natural light and high thermal value. Each interior is unique and designed to inspire different creative lifestyles in Detroit.
“It’s always nice to see architects do so much with so little. Despite the restraints of working with prefabricated structures and limited materials palette, they’ve made a surprisingly beautiful development—one that could easily be repeated—for a city that needs creative solutions.” —Morris Adjmi, Principal, Morris Adjmi Architects (juror)
Client:
Prince Concepts
Executive Architect:
Studio Detroit
Site and Landscape Design:
EC3
Landscape Contractor:
Heroes Landscape
Manufacturer:
SteelMaster
Honorable Mention
Project: American Copper Building
Architect: SHoP Architects
Location: New York
The American Copper Buildings present two bold and dynamic copper towers ‘dancing’ on NYC’s East River. The 761-unit luxury rental community, designed to patinate over time, reaches 41 and 48 stories in height with an iconic, amenity-filled skybridge connecting the two towers.
Honorable Mention
Project: 2510 Temple
Architect: Tighe Architecture
Location: Los Angeles
Perched within Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown, this combination of market-rate and affordable apartment units responds to the city’s housing crisis. Clad in metal panels, the sculptural form of the entry serves as a connection between the private areas of the project and commercial storefronts at street level.
