Tonight we're gonna have a talk with Toby Barlow who wrote the NYtimes piece which got the media blitzkrieg started around Design99 and some of the other artists working in Detroit.
Toby is also on the board of the cooperative that runs Lafayette that we wrote about earlier. Besides our interest in the organizational aspects of the co-op, the architectural merits of Lafayette park also deserve some attention, a 78 acre (320,000 m2) planned by Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilberseimer and Alfred Caldwell.
more on Lafayette Park at Dwell, and a slideshow
2 comments:
1300 Lafayette is part of the LP neighborhood, but unaffiliated with the series of co-ops where Toby (and I) live.
in the Mies development, each west-east series of townhomes is a separate co-op, making up four distinct co-ops in the mies lowrises alone. they share the cost of some services (security, garbage removal) but have separate ruling bodies to make decisions about lighting, landscaping, building maintenance, and whether to go with geothermal or traditional gas heating.
the pavilion apartments at the north end of the mies development and the twin towers across the plaisance are rentals. but spread all the way to mt. elliot are a series of separately-run cooperative neighborhoods with representative boards who make decisions about everything from who to allow into the co-ops to what landscaper to use. the co-ops are one of the more racially and socio-economically diverse neighborhoods in Detroit.
it really is an amazing place to live.
my photos of the mies developments are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72057594086163657/
Fantastic!
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