Three University of Michigan faculty members are part of a team who won an international design competition that will unite 12 cultural and educational institutions located in Detroit’s Midtown and change the way visitors and Detroiters experience the area.

“I mean, I think if we’re honest, we originally thought we could, at the least, change the nature of the conversation by putting our ideas on the table. And then we got through to the final three, and then we were selected as winners—and I’m just really proud that all the stakeholders appreciated our knowledge and perspective and trust us to carry it through.”

“Locally we had the perfect storm of people—not only had we all worked together in some capacity before, but we all had such different skills. My studio, Akoaki, specializes in architecture, cultural programming and urban design. Rootoftwo are known for their innovative work work with technology, public art and public policy. Harley Etienne is a leader in planning. Agence Ter, our partners from France, are recognized for their international landscape and urban design projects.”

“I’m most proud about the Respect Cafe. It’s attached to the Charles Wright Museum of African American History. The museum caters a lot of events and this cafe gives them flexible space. There are two parts to the name. One is an homage to Aretha Franklin. The other is respect to Detroiters.”

After graduating from Princeton, Mark Wallace moved to Detroit, where he briefly worked as a teacher. Deciding that he needed to make a career change, he went back to grad school at U-M to “reassess” how to be useful. “It had always been a priority of mine to do something to make life better for those kids and the families who live here.”

Wayne S. Brown hears and feels Detroit like a musical composition, a songbook that tells his life story and that of the city through its crescendos and decrescendos, its mournful lamentations to its soaring arias. Brown, a University of Michigan alum who serves as president and CEO of Michigan Opera Theatre, knows Detroit as the place that enriched his childhood, gave him his love of performing music and his first job opportunity with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It now serves as his inspiration to bring opera off of the stage and out into a community ready to embrace it.

It was his work with Detroit Sip and becoming a regular face at block club meetings, that resulted in Bill Lovejoy winning a Spirit of Detroit award from the Detroit City Council in 2018. This award remains one of his proudest achievements to date. “Anything I do in Detroit I do with local residents, and without them I do nothing.”

For the last 10 years, Steve Tobocman has been at the center of efforts to bolster Metro Detroit’s immigrant communities and their contribution to the region’s economy. Since 2009, the University of Michigan alum has led Global Detroit, a non-profit dedicated to making the area welcoming to immigrants, attracting and retaining talent, revitalizing neighborhoods, and attracting business development.

More than 150 community members gathered to celebrate a year of “making” at the Brightmoor Maker Space recently. The Detroit Community Schools and the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design hosted the open house to celebrate its first academic year in operation.