Hip Hop at 2014 Detroit Design Festival

September 20, 2014

On September 24, 2014 as part of the 2014 Detroit Design Festival I will give a lecture at titled "Hip Hop Inspired Architecture" at the University of Detroit's School of Architecture.

Date: September 24, 2014

Reception: 5:00pm

Lecture: 6:00pm

See Detroit Design Festival's full lineup here.

The main goals of the lecture are to:

1. Increase the awareness of the social responsibilities of architects and urban planners.

2. Encourage individuals of the profession's underrepresented groups to pursue a career in architecture.

3. Provide tools to increase the recruitment and retention rates of minorities in schools of architecture across the country.

4. Blast some hip hop in the middle of an architecture school!

Eminem at 2012 Architecture Conference in Detroit?

September 12, 2014

Ok, the title is a bit misleading. But, I just found this video online from a conference I attended in 2012. A few good friends of mine, Tiffany Brown, Saundra Little and a host of others worked pretty hard with NOMA-Detroit members planning for the 2012 National Organization of Minority Architects Conference in Detroit.

Mrs. Brown and NOMA-Detroit had the Selected of GOD Choir sing their popular rendition of Eminems' "Lose Yourself" from the recent Chrysler Commercial Ads during the dinner prior to the key note address by University of Michigan's Monica Ponce de Leon.

This was one of the most exciting moments during any of the NOMA Conferences I attended. Great job Tiff!

Hip Hop Inspired Architecture Lecture at University of Detroit Mercy's School of Architecture. September 24, 2015.

Hip Hop Architecture at Detroit Design Festival

September 12, 2014

On September 24, 2014, Michael Ford will deliver a lecture titled, "Hip Hop Inspired Architecture and Design" at the University of Detroit Mercy's School of Architecture as a part of Detroit's Design Festival.

Detroit's Brewster Projects - Photo by SJ Carey

In 1925 - LeCorbusier's Critics Predicted The Birth of Hip Hop

July 11, 2014

Here is an essential criticism of LeCorbusier's visionary plan for the center of Paris which further links LeCorbuser to the origin of hip hop culture. In 1935 as The City of Detroit built the first federally funded housing development specifically for African Americans which was based on Le Corbusier's "Towers in The Park" scheme, a French architectural critic took to the magazine, L’Architecte to warn the world of the sociological impact the towers and its programming would have on it's inhabitants. In my opinion, this criticism of LeCorbusier's urban renewal schemes, serve as a prediction to the birth of hip hop culture.

As The Brewster Housing Projects Fall, A New Architecture Rises From Its Dust

July 11, 2014

Today, Tiffany Brown, a former resident of Detroit's public housing who received her master’s degree in architecture from Lawrence Technological University is the new leading lady at the Brewsters nearly 80 years after the ribbon cutting by former first lady Elanor Roosevelt.. She represents Hamilton Anderson Associates as the construction administrator during demolition. How ironic is it that one who transcended the limitations of being born and raised in the public housing systems of Detroit is now the architectural representative coordinating the demolition process,