Soft Plan for Downtown Detroit

Urban Strategies Inc. - Toronto, Canada

"The new LiveStyles rendering engines... help people visualize projects in a familiar and non-threatening way."

Toronto-based urban design firm Urban Strategies Inc. utilized ArchiCAD to transform a 2D DXF file into a 3D model of downtown Detroit in just a few weeks. Michel Trocmé, an associate with the 24-person firm leading the Detroit study, is planning a reinvestment strategy for the city's 5-square-mile downtown area over the next 10 to 20 years, which will be presented to a diverse constituency. "We don't want to mislead people with detailed views when it is uncertain what the city will look like in 20 years. That's why the regular hard-line rendering associated with CAD isn't necessarily appropriate," Trocmé said. "With urban development, you need to get the feel of the open spaces and the relationship between the buildings. It's not about the buildings themselves."

Working from their "virtual building" ArchiCAD model, the firm used ArchiCAD's new LiveStyle™ rendering engines to keep the visuals simple and loose and help stakeholders better understand the design. "The new LiveStyles rendering engines are a brilliant move from Graphisoft. This new development will help people to visualize projects in a familiar and non-threatening way. There is a definite need out there for hand-sketched presentations," Trocmé said. Using a laptop and an overhead projector, Trocmé routinely walks his clients through projects using ArchiCAD's VR (virtual reality) technology. "Some clients have never seen anything like this before," he said. "And now with LiveStyles, we have the ability to create impressionistic VRs."

The downtown Detroit reinvestment strategy is intended to establish a redevelopment framework and identify key investment opportunities that aim to revitalize the pedestrian environment, reconnect the downtown to the riverfront, and attract new residential, retail, and office developments. Four districts within greater downtown Detroit are being studied, re-envisioned and targeted for strategic investment. The downtown area has been struggling to recover from steady decline and lack of investment coupled with the loss of one half (one million residents) of its population since the 1950s. "In urban planning, projects tend to have an afterlife. The project has to make sense in an economic, social and environmental perspective that outlives political situations. It requires a different way of thinking," Trocmé said.

In Lower Woodward, the heart of downtown, the design re-introduces an element of Detroit's original plan ? the public square of Campus Martius sits adjacent to an emerging community of loft apartments, galleries and restaurants. Responding to an RFP produced by Urban Strategies, developers are poised to build as much as 2 million square feet of commercial space around Campus Martius. "Rather than individual, stand-alone projects, such as a couple of tall buildings that would have no impact on the area, we're squashing it down and spreading it out to encourage place making and city building," Trocmé said.

Urban Strategies began using ArchiCAD in 1994, recognizing that ArchiCAD's software development was moving faster than other available CAD systems. Trocmé feels that having the city plan in ArchiCAD is the lifeblood of a project but the 3D views are almost as important. "3D has previously been secondary to the plans but that is changing now as there are more and more uses for it."