Monteith Library
Geography: Detroit, Michigan
September 2023-July 2024
Client: Wayne State University (WSU) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Riverbend neighborhood of Detroit.
studio[Ci] was invited to join a Team of local advocates and professionals to address the adaptive reuse of the historic Monteith branch library on Detroit’s Eastside. The Monteith Library is located at 14100 Kercheval Avenue, Detroit, MI, USA, at the corner of Eastlawn Street, south of Kercheval Avenue, north of E. Jefferson Avenue, east of Eastlawn Street, and west of Newport Street.
The Monteith Project is a collective vision to revive and expand the programming of the branch as both a library and a local resilience hub (as part of Eastside Community Network’s planned eastside network), investigate the feasibility of adjacent affordable senior housing, and be everything a modern library can and should be to a neighborhood: “knowledge infrastructure”.
As architecture and design lead, studio[Ci]’s scope included: Team meetings, research and documentation of Existing Conditions and Regulatory Overlay, Outreach to Housing and Development experts, Generation of Zoning Envelope “Build Out” Analysis, Guidance on Community Process and potential Design and Development Alternatives.
studio[Ci] Leads: Constance C. Bodurow, Principal and Haibin Tan, Senior Designer
Technical Team: Dr. William Shuster, Chair WSU Department Civil and Environmental Engineering, Project Director; Dr. Tam Perry, WSU Professor of Social Work; Professor Hyun Koo, Construction Feasibility; Lisa DiChiera, Historic Preservation; Cindi Cook, Media and Communications.
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