About Face

About Face is an architectural installation that assumes a non-domestic future for the vacant homes of Detroit (and elsewhere). As a part of an exhibition, it is both an architectural object as well as a model for urban intervention. It is composed of 21 structurally integrated, fiber-reinforced epoxy panels and is both stair and room. Against the domestic symbol of the house, represented by the conventional plan, About Face suggests a reorientation and posits a strategy to opening houses onto empty lots left by disappearing houses. As an intervention that itself approximates the scale of a small building, About Face proposes a new type of building within buildings. This project was generously supported by the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Rice School of Architecture.