Mechanical Engineer: SSR
Location: Detroit, Michigan
With the return of the Detroit Pistons from the suburbs to Downtown Detroit in 2017, designing the team’s new training facility became an opportunity to re-energize the franchise’s relationship with the city and the community.
The benefits of the Henry Ford Pistons Performance Center go well beyond sports and the players. The multi-purpose facility will house the Detroit Pistons training center as well as the team’s corporate offices, a Henry Ford Health System sports medicine clinic, a Plum Market grocery store and café, and three additional retail tenants.
Ensuring the building was accessible and desirable to the local community was a key principle in the design process as part of the larger vision to create an asset for the neighborhood. The Henry Ford Pistons Performance Center is designed as a walk-able destination and leverages its close proximity (a five-minute walk) to the new Q-Line Streetcar route which connects New Center to the rest of Detroit’s Greater Downtown. The building design features active street-level frontages along the primary walking streets with numerous storefronts and an outdoor dining patio for the café. Street trees, bike racks, and places to sit line the sidewalks to provide streetscape amenities and promote walk-ability in an area that will be visited daily by employees and residents.
The planning process for the Henry Ford Pistons Performance Center carefully considered the existing urban context surrounding the site including street and building patterns as well as the needs of residents and employees in the area. The resulting context-sensitive design incorporates over 25,000 square feet of active street-level retail and service space, intended to fulfill a demand for amenities in the neighborhood and to create a visible, active public face – positioning the facility as an anchor within the community. As luring retail into a neighborhood without an anchor is typically a challenge, the Pistons Performance Center will act as that cornerstone by immersing their franchise into the community and adding meaningful retail, services, and street life to New Center – an area that’s still in need of amenities and street life.
More details can be found at: https://network.aia.org/blogs/sande-r-frisen-aia/2019/03/08/pistons-performance-center
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