Park It

[2025-2027]

Faced with budgetary constraints, the Detroit Institute of Arts undertakes a partial reconstruction of its underground parking structure—retaining the existing perimeter walls while reducing the garage’s overall footprint. Rather than infill the resulting void, the project reclaims it as a sunken garden. This residual space becomes a site of architectural and environmental leverage: integrating water management systems with a curatorial landscape for contemporary cultural production. Subsurface infrastructure—typically concealed—is made legible as a civic artifact. Structural retaining walls are reimagined as exhibition surfaces; excavation becomes public realm. The intervention aligns economic necessity with spatial invention, proposing a new typology of hybrid space where hydrology, landscape, and cultural programming converge. In doing so, the project reframes renovation not as compromise, but as an opportunity to generate public value through adaptive reuse—advancing a model for low-carbon, performative infrastructure that is both context-specific and generative.

[THIRD LANDSCAPES]