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Re:Factory, Detroit

Part 2 Project 2018
Thomas Kendrew
University of Westminster | UK
Responding to the ongoing problem of poor housing and economic decline in Detroit, Re:Factory proposes a new factory typology that distributes the factory process across the city’s derelict and leftover spaces, simultaneously providing public transport for the city whilst at the same time producing new high-quality housing. The factory modules combine elevated living and working spaces with automated production zones to create a new industrial backbone for the city’s future.


Thomas Kendrew

Tutor(s)
Richard Difford
Francois Girardin
2018
A proposal for the urban renewal and reconfiguration of Detroit, Michigan
City of Makers, City of Memories
The factory is spread across the city, its manufacturing process divested across a variety of empty and derelict plots. The factory forms the backbone spatially and figuratively of the city, linked together by a new urban rail provision. The dual-level mo
Disseminating the Manufacturing Process
Disseminating the Manufacturing Process
The human/robot separation continues in the Main Assembly building, where the factory assembles housing modules to be shipped across Detroit. The long, winding processes of the production line are folded up into 3D space to create a more compact and effic
The factory is constructed using the same structural systems as the product it creates; this means that its production lines can be used to expand the factory itself and respond to increases in demand; it can also demount itself and cannibalise the compon
The Factory’s product is housing modules, which are both stacked on top of the working space to create a combined live/work multistructure, but also shipped across the city to be constructed in place of the old, blighted housing and create new high-qualit
The factory systems are tightly integrated with the structure, offering a series of ‘plug-and-play’ points into which housing modules will be added as they are installed.
The factory becomes more than just a place of making; it is now host to a diverse, growing community of people whose live and work environments are increasingly linked. By providing high-quality spaces and productive work they can be proud of, the people
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