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@m1dtw
Great Lakes By Design Magazine recently featured a pair of M1DTW’s recent workspace projects in Detroit and talked with M1DTW founder Christian Unverzagt about how work has changed along with how design changed his life. Click the link above to purchase a copy of the magazine or click HERE for a PDF of the article. Featured Projects: Floyd Library and 5000 Grand River Offices
I’m not sure why it took so long for me to meet Jeffrey Kilmer. We should have crossed paths much sooner, although he spent most of his time in graduate school at Michigan while I was away in Los Angeles at SCI-Arc. While I had kept an eye on things happening at Michigan (I was still designing the occasional book or postcard for the architecture program) we had mutual friends and I knew him by name, but don’t think we ever met in the 90s. By the time I returned to Ann Arbor to teach, he had graduated.
In the 00s, I learned he had published a book of his photography, 23% PURE while living in NYC, and was excited to see him doing something different with his architectural education.
When we started the practice we knew the importance of having our projects photographed, although we weren’t always able to do so. Still years before social media, we weren’t even sure the best way to hire architectural photographers, other than people we knew. This worked until they moved away.
About ten years ago I decided it was time to get serious again about documenting our work, and thinking about who we knew. I reached out to Jeffrey to schedule a shoot. He was excited at the opportunity to do some work back in Michigan and in August of 2013 he shot Mills Pharmacy.
Jeffrey grew up in Southeast Michigan, and his parents now lived in Traverse City, so these assignments were also a chance for him to catch up with local friends and visit family. While shoots were often stressful and a lot of work, they were always rewarded with a vacation up north. Our shoots almost always began in pre-dawn darkness as the sun came up and ended with a sense of accomplishment, often over a satisfying meal.
Over the next eight years Jeffrey photographed more than a dozen of our projects. I mean it when I say that recognition our work has received is due in large part to his photographs.
He shot alone, with only a camera and tripod. He’d ask about the project and what was important to capture, but he then took over. During shoots I would assist, cleaning windows or adjusting furniture for him. Meanwhile we would catch up on life — its highs and its lows — and other experiences from our past, comparing parallel timelines and filling in gaps about old friends at Michigan. Like zoning out while driving on a freeway, I would often forget what we were doing and snap back to the task at hand. Meanwhile, Jeffrey was working: setting up and refining the composition in subtle ways that I discover still whenever I study his photographs.
Usually he would shoot two or three projects during a visit — and once five! Last year he visited so we could photograph projects from 2019 and 2020 that we weren’t able to document during the early waves of the pandemic. Over two days we shot three projects. The last few years had been hard on him and his health, although he managed to find the time to continue to send news clippings from the New York Times of projects he thought would interest me — carefully cut and folded and tucked neatly into an envelope.
This past April, late morning on a Friday, a message came through Instagram from a classmate of his, sharing that the day prior, Jeffrey had passed away in the hospital. As I write this on another late morning Friday four months later, I’m still struck with sadness that he’s no longer with us.
Yet I am comforted by the stories shared by the people who knew him. I am immensely grateful we had the opportunity to work together, and think of him every time I look at our portfolio.
Rest easy, friend.
A NYC Memorial will take place tomorrow, August 20th from 1-3pm at Home Sweet Home in the LES. Sending love to all his friends and family.
—Christian Unverzagt, August 19, 2022, Detroit.
Photos: Jeffrey Kilmer, July 15, 2015, Detroit followed by project photos taken by him 2013–2021.
GC Magazine recently named M1DTW one of the Best Commercial Architects in Detroit, Michigan. ˆM1DTW engages in a hands-on process that has attracted emerging entrepreneurs across a range of industries.”
Water Street Drive-Thru receives AIA Detroit Honor Award
AIA Detroit has recognized Water Street Drive-Thru with an Honor Award in the Small Project category.
The jury stated: "Attention to detail is big on this small project; the clever use of varying brickwork, compelling textures, and curvature heightens the drive-thru experience, elevating an otherwise mundane pitstop to an enjoyable and engaging customer experience."
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Bloomscape HQ receives AIA Detroit Honor Award
AIA Detroit has recognized Bloomscape Headquarters with an Honor Award in the Interiors category.
The jury stated: “With its light, airy spaces and a straight-forward, minimalist design approach, the building does a lot with a little and reflects the company’s ethos.”
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Oakridge Dental Center receives AIA Michigan Honor Award
AIA Michigan has recognized Oakridge Dental Center with an Honor Award in the Interiors category.
The jury stated: “This design embodies a sense of peace. We praise the architect’s restraint and dedicated attention to material, light, and, most specifically, views to engender calm.”
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Oakridge Dental Center recognized with M-Award
The Masonry Institute of Michigan and AIA Michigan have recognized Oakridge Dental Center with an M-Award for Excellence in Masonry Design.
The jury stated: “A thoughtful and elemental use of a simple material, the white, mineral painted brick is skillfully contrasted with the black window mullions.”
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
The Water Street Coffee Drive-Thru recognized with M-Award
The Masonry Institute of Michigan and AIA Michigan have recognized the Water Street Coffee Drive-Thru with an M-Award for Excellence in Masonry Design.
The jury stated: “An utterly modest building, accepting of its context, but with great attention paid to the articulation of masonry and the visual experience of the façade from a slow-moving automobile.”
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
6 Salon (Pop-Up) receives AIA Detroit Honor Award
Designed and Built in 11 days in response to a flood, this project received a 2020 award in the Small Project Category, and will be showcased in September at the AIA Detroit’s 2020 Celebration of Architecture.
The jury stated: “This project seems prescient as we are forced to adapt to ever-changing and uncertain times.“
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Oakridge Dental Center receives AIA Detroit Honor Award
The recently completed project received a 2020 award in the Building Category, and will be showcased in September at the AIA Detroit’s 2020 Celebration of Architecture.
The jury stated: “Simple, restrained and elegant. Materiality both interior and exterior is understated. The views to the exterior were thoughtfully choreographed to provide views to the exterior for patients."
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
FLOYD HQ receives AIA Michigan Honor Award
Detroit’s Floyd HQ received a 2020 award in the Interiors Category, which marks the 4th AIA Michigan award for M1DTW.
The jury stated: “Applauded for its modesty and accomplished within a tight time frame. Within its precise layout, walls are effectively used for communication.“
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Unverzagt promoted to Associate Professor of Practice at UM
M1/DTW Design Director Christian Unverzagt has been promoted to Associate Professor of Practice in Architecture at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Announcement.
House of Pure Vin receives AIA Michigan Honor Award
Detroit’s House of Pure Vin received a 2017 award in the Interior Design Category, which marks the 3rd AIA Michigan award for M1DTW in three years.
House of Pure Vin was also recently named Best Wine Shop by HOUR Detroit Readers!
See more work at M1DTW.com >>
Durability in Design
One of our earliest projects, 6 Salon celebrated it’s 14th anniversary over the weekend, having opened on March 25, 2003. In an industry known for fashionable trends and disposable style, we are particularly proud of the longevity we achieved with this project.
While there have been a number of updates and additions, the core physical character of the salon has remain unchanged. This is due in part to the continued significance of two aspects of the salon: it’s spatial character and performance; and the social interaction between the stylist and their client.
The client invested in design that extended from the facade and shell of the space down to all of its physical elements — highly durable workstations and furniture elements. And while our intention was never to be ‘green’ per se, the quality of the materials has broken the cycle of disposable ‘remodeling’ that the industry is known for. The materials wear well in a demanding environment while also being highly recyclable, from the stainless steel, aluminum, and glass used throughout.
The design, while distinctive, and fixed in many ways, also provided flexibility for growth and adaptation: a flowing curtain become a fixed glass wall several years ago; two additional stations were added early, updated wall graphics on the salon’s few drywall surfaces were recently added, and replacement equipment (new chairs and bowls): while the stations remain unchanged all these years later, storage pods were added following their introduction at the Old Woodward location in 2014.
The furniture has also held up remarkably well, with the original chairs and sofa still in use. The Bertoia chairs have new seat pads and the Eames compact sofa has been reupholstered (and was due again at the time of the photographs), but have broken in like a well-worn baseball mitt, as Charles Eames has said.
The branding has also served as a consistent marker for the salon, with a limited palette of typography, wit, and color, but perhaps that’s a discussion for another time.
We have composed a series of then and now photographs where it is possible to compare the project since its opening and how it is today.
Photographs by G. Todd Roberts (2003) and Jeffrey Kilmer (2016)
Thanks for the spotlight @aigadetroit #detroitdesign
Curtain call at the Detroit Yoga Lab (some of you can see the gif.)
Excited to see the finished copy of our research document for Detroit’s Fisher Building after spending months combing through the archives. Our work was best summed up recently by our client:
[M1/DTW is] "cataloging every piece of history, every sourcing of the marble, the hardware, the history of the tenants, the original brochures, what role (the Fisher) played over time, the people who were here, the tenants who were here," Cummings said.
"They are doing almost an archeology."
Read more about their plans for the Fisher Building and other developments...