Pinnacle Detroit

Detroit, Michigan

In 1999 JMA prepared designs for a 15 acre mixed use business development incubator and community with retail on a site adjacent to the Detroit Airport. The plans called for the phased development of larger scale high-tech research and manufacturing businesses organized around an active town center of supporting business, including smaller offices, shops, food services and community buildings.

Unlike typical office parks where buildings are set back from the street in the midst of sterile parking lots, the plans called for buildings to be pushed out to create urban streetscapes and promote connectivity, flexibility and safety. Intimately scaled parks create a pattern of relief, based in part on the charming example of Savannah Georgia. Parking lots were designed to be surrounded by buildings to create a sense of security for the growing number of women in the workforce, to create more efficient lighting and to protect the lots from cold winds in winter and provide shade in summer. Buildings at the community core are composed with materials traditionally used in Detroit and some detailing suggesting regional vernacular design.

Unlike typical office parks where buildings are set back from the street in the midst of sterile parking lots, the plans called for buildings to be pushed out to create urban streetscapes and promote connectivity, flexibility and safety. Intimately scaled parks create a pattern of relief, based in part on the charming example of Savannah Georgia. Parking lots were designed to be surrounded by buildings to create a sense of security for the growing number of women in the workforce, to create more efficient lighting and to protect the lots from cold winds in winter and provide shade in summer. Buildings at the community core are composed with materials traditionally used in Detroit and some detailing suggesting regional vernacular design.

Most office parks are sterile becasue the buildings are without human scale and surrounded by moats of parking lot deserts. The buildings are disconnected from streets. The streets are desolate, lacking pedestrians, foliage, street furniture and human scaled facades. The Pinnacle designs push buildings up to the street to create a sense of urbanity, connectivity, community and safety. The streetscape, inspired by Savannah and Italian hill towns, alternates rhythmically between intimate pedestrian-centric streets and green parks, in part to accommodate wetlands. Parking lots are surrounded by buildings to provide summer shade, winter windbreaks, efficient lighting schemes to reduce waste and light pollution and especially to create a sense of security for the growing number of women in the workforce. Buildings at the core of the Pinnacle are composed of local, vernacular urban building materials.