Landscape, as a design practice and as a research field, is a rich and complex discipline with the powerful potential to influence the human experience and its relationship with the surrounding environment. It can serve as a catalyst, inspiring innovative strategies and solutions to address social, economic, environmental, and health issues, where landscapes—urban, rural, coastal, wooded, and agrarian—are brought to the center of the conversation. It is inherent to the human condition to often be drawn to landscape and contemplate its connection with and to daily life, which the recent pandemic in many ways reinforced the value of living with the land and immediate exterior spaces rather than separate from…
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Lakefront Prairie oasis
On the western shores of Lake Michigan, a composition of brick and stucco, leaded glass windows and overhanging eaves, emerges from its sloped landscape in an artful celebration of geometric abstraction. Surrounded by planted sumac and prairie grasses on a blufflike dune ecosystem, the home is respectful of the iconic Prairie Style where principles are adapted for its site, purpose, and time. There is an integration with its landscape as its rectilinear form intentionally wraps around a 150-year-old oak tree and opens out toward the lakefront in an expression of waterfront living. Its simple, natural palette celebrates the discipline of ornament and artistry of craftsmanship from artisan tiles and hand-carved…
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Refractory
For Refractory’s inaugural body of work and inception—forged at a moment of unprecedented change—its muse sings of a reverence for a frontier unbridled by time, when mountains were new, sandstone buttes clustered, continents drifted, and oceans receded. It speaks of mountain ranges, canyons, basins, and plateaus, shaped by deep-rooted geologic pressures and carved by powerful movements of rivers and wind. It gestures to the fire of transformation, the resilience of form and creature, the presence of materiality, and the harsh grace of natural forces. It embraces the rugged honesty of erosion, the celebration of unusual moments of irreverence, and a dedication to craft as integral to design—set in a region…
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Port Lands
Natural landscapes can often re-energize, bring peace of mind, and help people feel centered within their life. In larger, busier cities, where manmade infrastructure is sprawling and the population is diverse, many times nature is not as accessible to most. Though sustainable practices that help preserve nature may not often be prioritized, in Toronto, an organization known as Waterfront Toronto has set out to put people first by reconnecting them with the waterfront in the design of projects that are environmentally and economically sustainable. As part of that initiative, the organization plans to debut one of its larger-scale projects, called the Port Lands Flood Protection Project, to the public in…
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In conversation: Jason Keen
Visual Artist, Photographer Detroit, Michigan With an award-winning portfolio of work, Jason Keen is a Detroit, Michigan-based photographer who documents the built environment and has spent the last decade capturing the iconic design and architectural work of firms like Gensler, Stantec, Smithgroup, Olson Kundig, ROSSETTI, Mathison | Mathison, Moody Nolan, PLY+, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects or LOHA, McIntosh Poris Associates, HOK, and INFORM Studio, to name a few, garnering recognition from a number of well-known outlets and renowned organizations. Great Lakes By Design Magazine recently had the opportunity to speak with him about what drew him to the field, his inspiration, and his work on capturing the space, light, and landscape…
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Art of hospitality
When Aparium Hotel Group LLC, a Chicago-based hospitality management company, looked to realize a new contextual, modern vision of luxury inspiration in partnership with Mark Mitchell, owner and local entrepreneur, on a prominent corner in Birmingham, Michigan, the company tapped the architectural design expertise of Booth Hansen of Chicago. At its core, the project and collaborative team sought to bring a world-class property deeply connected with the community, to life. Through intentional massing, a refined albeit eclectic palette of natural materials and rich hues, singular moments of architectural and interior delight—where the visual experience turns sensory—the Daxton Hotel seeks to capture the authentic flavors of Birmingham’s main thoroughfare—Old Woodward Avenue—side…
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The Georgian coastal
Built high into the white sand, wind-blown bluff on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, this coastal Neo-Georgian retreat is an inspired dialect of classic vernacular language often found in Georgian—and its American iterative, Colonial Revival—and Atlantic, Nantucket style. Defined by its proportion, symmetry, and restrained classical ornamentation, this residence reinterprets the traditional with East Coast inspired shingle siding, large spaces, generous windows, and layering of natural materials in understated elegance. While distinctive in its neighborhood, it is contextual in its siting and scale while embracing its lakefront environment through award-winning landscape and design of lush greens, textural plants, and a mixture of white and subtle hues in its foliage.…
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Freshwater future
As a collective of fresh water that houses more than 20 percent of North America’s freshwater volume, the Great Lakes hold a unique status among American waterways. They require special consideration and treatment, especially in the face of climate change’s adverse effects. While the Great Lakes have a long, natural history of water level fluctuation, recent levels signal a decidedly more extreme phase in the pattern. The past few years have seen some of the lakes’ highest recorded water levels, which can cause destruction from flooding and erosion to damaged shoreline homes and infrastructure across the Great Lakes Basin’s approximately 14,000 miles of shoreline. Headquartered in Detroit but operating across…
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X House
Perched on rock outcroppings along the shore of Lake Superior, a Marquette, Michigan residence is a display of harmonies between residential life and a profound natural topography of forest, lichenous bedrock, and freshwater horizon. The single-story home lays about the landscape in an X shape: an architectural strategy to minimize the home’s footprint, while preserving those stony landforms that inspired the homeowners and architectural team. The shape also embodies more conceptual contradictions, such as the interactions of short and long views across the lake and the robust, protective design of the home that is still bordered in glass and fit for the gentle rituals of everyday life. The choiceness of…
