Detroit West Riverfront Park

Celebrated Seattle architecture company GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol), is known for designing the amazing National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. They recently created a new solution for Detroit’s West Riverfront Park and had us build a large terrain model to showcase their new design.

The most prominent features of their design are the translucent all-season pavilion known as the Meeting Place, and the dramatic Fishing Barge, the long pier jutting out into the river. Prominent colors were utilized to designate various activity areas. Their thinking centered around bringing all parts of the city together, old and new, for a common space that would be a “Crossing Ground.”

In a similar vein, we created a topographic scale model that brought all kinds of techniques together. We bordered the park area with massing models of the surrounding buildings. The park’s topography was color-blocked and then peppered with trees. The Meeting Place Pavilion was 3D printed and the Fishing Barge pier was laser-cut.

The model was built in 1″ = 40″ scale and is 36″ by 58″.