PEREGRINE GERETY
The Architectural Salvage Warehouse retail space at 230 Piquette Avenue in Detroit consists of a series of large, connected bays. The first bay has a slightly peaked roof and is constructed of steel beams and corrugated steel walls. The subsequent bays are constructed of concrete blocks and have flat roofs supported by steel beams. Large garage doors provide access to the bays. The garage door at the south end of the first bay provides public access when the space is open for business.
The interior of the first bay is entirely open, with all necessary structural support provided by the steel beams along the bay’s walls and under its roof. The second bay, far larger in area, contains a grid of steel support columns. The ceilings of both the first bay and the main portion of the second bay are roughly eighteen feet high. At the northern end of the second bay, however, there is a smaller space, partially subdivided by concrete block, with a lower ceiling (roughly twelve feet high) undergirded by a different style of support beam.
This knolled kit-of-parts diagram shows the visible structural elements out of which the warehouse is built. It contains steel beams of a variety of sizes and styles, sections of concrete block and corrugated steel walls, ceiling elements, the concrete slab of the floor, ducts, a door and frame, a garage door with its mechanical opening mechanism, the skylight panes from the first bay, and an LED light bulb.
These two ANT maps trace the structural forces impacting the two categories of goods with which the Architectural Salvage Warehouse deals: construction materials and used stuff. Each map is three dimensional, tracing three axes of forces and the interactions and connections between these axes.
The first map focuses on the lifecycle of construction materials. Its three axes are toxicity and waste, durability and decay, and deconstruction and reconstruction. Just as the axes on a Cartesian grid do not represent spectrums, but instead lines of orientation, so too should we understand these axes. Durability and decay, for instance, are not opposites of one another, but complementary aspects of how physical objects interact with their environments over time. The physical form of this first map is quite orderly and balanced, representing the natural logic of deconstruction and reconstruction. Throughout most of human history, construction waste simply did not exist. Any materials that were not recycled back into the earth through the process of decomposition were reused, often many times. Construction toxicity and waste are artifacts of carbon dependence, and must disappear as we transition into a post-carbon future.
The second map, on the other hand, is visibly out of balance. This imbalance represents the destructive social forces that have created the abundance of used construction materials within the city of Detroit. The three axes of orientation in this map are image and lived experience, continuity and innovation, and race and capitalism. The interaction of these axes has created Detroit as it exists today and has driven the depopulation that has left so many buildings unoccupied.
The first map focuses on the lifecycle of construction materials. Its three axes are toxicity and waste, durability and decay, and deconstruction and reconstruction. Just as the axes on a Cartesian grid do not represent spectrums, but instead lines of orientation, so too should we understand these axes. Durability and decay, for instance, are not opposites of one another, but complementary aspects of how physical objects interact with their environments over time. The physical form of this first map is quite orderly and balanced, representing the natural logic of deconstruction and reconstruction. Throughout most of human history, construction waste simply did not exist. Any materials that were not recycled back into the earth through the process of decomposition were reused, often many times. Construction toxicity and waste are artifacts of carbon dependence, and must disappear as we transition into a post-carbon future.
The second map, on the other hand, is visibly out of balance. This imbalance represents the destructive social forces that have created the abundance of used construction materials within the city of Detroit. The three axes of orientation in this map are image and lived experience, continuity and innovation, and race and capitalism. The interaction of these axes has created Detroit as it exists today and has driven the depopulation that has left so many buildings unoccupied.
The diagrammatic sequence shown in this video represents the interaction of nested and propped elements. Used construction materials have been propped against one another to form a series of nests, and nests of various sizes are nested amongst one another in each of the three warehouse areas. This nested form is also reflected upwards, where several large circular portions of ceiling have been lifted up substantially and are now held in place by slightly simplified copies of the nests below. The composition is completed by a circular catwalk, which provides the final nest space of the warehouse and allows the visitor to look down into the smaller nests below.
The city of Detroit holds a central place in the American imagination and in American dreams. As Rebecca Kinney Points out, the American Dream itself largely originates in this most quintessential of American cities. It is no wonder, then, that ruin porn and other highly curated images of Detroit’s so-called “decline” have shaped so many revanchist nightmares of what America is becoming. But while Detroit may be a city of dreams, it is not now and never has been a nightmare. It is instead a city of resilience and resistance. Under constant assault with policies intended to undermine and punish, Detroit simply refuses to give up or die. And in this refusal there is also a dream for America.
In this warehouse space, I have attempted in one small way to redream the American Dream. I have envisioned that the principles of salvage and reconstruction that the Architectural Salvage Warehouse embodies have been extended beyond individual building materials to encompass entire lots, blocks, and neighborhoods. The construction materials that fill the warehouse have been transformed into entire buildings ready to be salvaged, reclaimed and recreated. The buildings fit together in nests as they do in neighborhoods, no longer held as individual property, but instead stewarded as a commons for all. After all, as our indigenous neighbors like Robin Wall Kimmerer would remind us, it is not the commons that is foreign to this soil, but instead the concept of ownership. I believe this is an American Dream worth dreaming.
In this parallax image, we traverse the warehouse space from north to south along the westernmost wall. As we do so, we pass each of the clusters of nests. The experience of walking through this space is intended to feel like strolling through an overgrown garden, with plants rising far above our heads. Our journey ends at the southern edge of the second bay, where the stairs lead up to the catwalk.
These interior perspectives of the reimagined warehouse space represent the experience of being in the warehouse amongst the nests. Although the interior is now filled with quite large objects, it feels open because of the additional space that has been created by the nest structures in the roof. The catwalk stairs invite the visitor to explore this space further and look down from above. The visitor may also notice the claw mechanisms used for moving and rearranging buildings within the space. Peeking into the nests also provides a closer glimpse of the buildings inside. Like bird eggs, they are alive and full of possibility.