2017-18 Architecture Department Newsletter

At the Academy, students set their own course of study. Our studio-based program means we don’t have a standard curriculum or classes, and instead provide students with the resources to allow for individual exploration and growth.

The workshops and visiting artist program supported by each department allow students to hear from a variety of voices in the world of art and design, and often establish connections that extend well beyond the two years of graduate study.

This fall, we welcomed Michael Kokora, partner at OBJECT TERRITORIES, who opened a critique of urban form, resiliency planning, and landscape architecture. 

We also held several workshops with Matt Hutchinson, who runs the architecture and design practice PATH, where material and fabrication are at the core of their working method. He worked with students to show them new methods and tools used in fabrication design, and how they could bring them into their practice.

This semester, we will welcome Guvenc Ozel, Oana Stanescu, Esther Choi and Annie Barrett.

Each year, the department takes an annual trip to another part of the country where significant cultural and societal engagement is taking place. During the spring semester of 2017, the Architecture Department visited Marfa, Texas with current Architect-in-Residence, Ceren Bingol.

Their trip started with a hike at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico which set the tone for the four days spent in Marfa visiting, discussing, and drawing Donald Judd’s comprehensive body of work.

They spent the remainder of their days bonding as a group while attending the Marfa Music Festival, gallery openings, star-gazing, getting to the bottom of “Marfa lights” and evaluating food and drink options.

This fall, our students traveled to Chicago to visit the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial where they took in new work and also visited several architecturally significant locations.

Curbed has listed Cranbrook as one of the best destinations for architecturally-minded travelers.

According to the article the campus “boasts an impressive list of alumni….and a gorgeous campus designed by Elliel Saarinen that stands as a masterpiece of planning and integrating with the landscape.” Read the full story here.

Ania Jaworska (Architecture ’09) was recently featured inCultured magazine, highlighting her conceptual practice and the recent work she has completed for the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Jaworska was also featured in Sight Unseen, and her work, along with the work of several other Academy alumni, can be seen in the exhibition Cranbook: A New Domestic Landscape,currently on display at Cranbrook Art Museum.

Elise DeChard (Architecture ’17) recently opened a new garage-turned-gallery space in Pontiac, Mich. The Tessellate Gallery is focused on art as a tool for community engagement. The gallery hosted an artists’ residency this summer for three international artists, and continues to host exhibitions. Visit the gallery’s website here, and read about the project in The Oakland Press.

Our architecture program is steeped in tradition. Recently, Artsy featured “7 Things to Know About Mid-Century Design Pioneer Florence Knoll.” Knoll studied at the Academy’s Architecture department in the late 1930s.

Living and working in close proximity to Detroit offers our students the opportunity to be a part of one of the world’s emerging art and design communities.

Home to the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) and countless smaller galleries, Detroit has attracted artists and designers from around the world who are converting abandoned buildings into studio spaces and creative neighborhoods.

The next ten years will be pivotal in making massive changes in Detroit, from a city that conceptually understands the importance of change to a city that implements new policy, sustainable infrastructure and a concern for the built environment into all aspects of our shared urban environment.

The vastness of the city has created a bank of cultural enclaves with ever‐growing creative initiatives at play.

Collaboration between Cranbrook and local curators, builders, writers and cultural leaders means sharing widely our thinking, inquiry, and energy for innovation. This adjacency to the city is an opportunity for community engagement, large-scale group projects and a variety of proposed solutions for a sustainable built environment.