Courting Villas
Residential | Architecture and Urban Planning | Detroit, Michigan | 2022
Master planning, architectural design, 3D modeling, drafting and rendering of a housing development.
The Courting Villas project is a development of three residential buildings, each surrounding a courtyard, thus creating modern villas that allow neighborly connection and interactivity.
Different iterations of each building are a result of some housing units having a lower profile, and some rising into a tower, which creates a variation of typology, density, and profile fitting to the Brush Park neighborhood, just north of downtown Detroit.
Drawing an axis from the existing muse at City Modern and surrounding streets profiles, the resulting angular design also responds to the environmental conditions. Each courtyard is accessible to the housing units, which creates private, semi-private, and public spaces where residents can interact with each other.
Each courtyard is located at different elevations. The higher courtyards are within each building leading down to the lower courtyard at the center of the site. This creates opportunities such as the underground parking conditions that are not too invasive to the site, allows for a sustainable stormwater management, and provides a playful interaction between buildings.
Designed in collaboration with Jutang Gao and Chengxiang Li.
