Ice House Detroit Project Update

So a lot has occurred over the last few weeks. Gregory and I have found several organizations within urban Detroit to collaborate on our project with.

We are currently working with the Michigan Land Bank and Wayne County Land Banks to locate a specific abandoned house and property to use for the Ice House Detroit Project. Both of these organizations work to demolish a certain number of abandoned houses every year - especially those that are fire damaged or dangerous to the public. In the next week or two, we will be travelling back to Detroit to tour around and find an iconic house which fits the project.

After the project is complete, we will be demolishing and recycling materials from the house in association with the group Architectural Salvage Warehouse Detroit, a "501 (c)(3) non-profit organization founded to keep building materials out of landfills through architectural salvage". This will be one of the major costs of the project for us.

After the house has been deconstructed and the materials from it recycled, we hope to donate the remaining lot to one of the following organizations that are transforming the future of urban Detroit.

Greening of Detroit is an organization that aims "to guide and inspire others to create a 'greener' Detroit through planting and educational programs environmental leadership, advocacy, and by building community capacity."

We are also speaking to Earthworks Urban Farm, an organization that works with sustainable agricultural practices, feeding the homeless, school programming, and neighborhood self sufficiency. It is one of many groups that we feel points towards a different urban character for the future. We will have to make a decision on all of this related to where the house is that we pick for the project. The photo below is of a project we saw when we did our research trip to Detroit in September. This lot is not in the suburbs, or the country, but is actually a stone's throw from downtown Detroit.

Please remember that we need financial support for this project. Your support of this project will not only support an art project, but it will support some groundbreaking, visionary organizations that believe in the city and people of Detroit.

Information regarding Detroit Housing

Detroit is a depopulated city with many areas returning to open space prairie land. Below are two examples.
Move your mouse over the image to see the way it looks today.

St. Cyril Parish urban prairie in 149


Roll mouse over to see the current landscape

Herman Gardens urban prairie in 1967


Roll mouse over to see the current landscape

Typical near downtown Detroit neighborhood. Currently 80,000 houses are potentially abandoned, while the city only tears down about 100 a year.

References

http://www.lostmag.com/issue2/detroit.php

Night Photography by Gregory Holm

These photographs demonstrate a technique of lighting homes at night using only available traffic lights.
In the first photograph I used a ratio of 60% green light, 30% red, 10% yellow.
In the second photograph I used a ratio of 50% green and %50 yellow
The exposures were roughly 12 minutes. But due to the limited duration of each colored light and the passing cars, each shot took nearly an hour to complete, using a stop watch and "country shutter."

Kickstarter Rewards Info

Detroit Urban Tour

Scott Hocking
Scott Hocking is the preeminent expert on the urban tapestry of Detroit, with an endless knowledge of the city's architectural and industrial heritage. He is also an internationally acclaimed installation artist, photographer, and lecturer, with work that has been shown at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, the Shrinking Cities exhibition, in addition to galleries in Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, and beyond. When international artists and architects come to Detroit and want to really see the city, Scott is the person that is giving the tour.
www.scotthocking.com

Ziggurat 2007-2008



Pictures of a City: Scrappers 2003-2005



Potential Detroit Urban Tour Location Stops


Packard Plant






Highland Park




Michican Central Depot Train Station Tour

Completed in 1913, the building is of the Beaux-Arts Classical style of architecture, designed by the Warren & Wetmore and Reed and Stem firms who also designed New York City's Grand Central Terminal.
This is one of the great American architectural and industrial wonders, and currently threatened by demolition. When it was built it was the tallest train station in the world.