Detroit Quonset Hut Village Wins 2017 Best of Design Award

After over 800 submissions and countless hours of sifting through quality contenders, True North Detroit emerged as one of the winners of the 2017 Architects Newspaper’s Best of Design Award.

There are 42 categories in this contest, and True North Detroit won in the Residential – Multi Unit category. Projects of all different kinds, shapes, and sizes were submitted, and the amazing live-work space True North Detroit clearly out shined much of the competition.

Edwin Chan teamed up with developer Philip Kafka to create this unique steel Quonset Hut village through his real estate company called Prince Concepts.

The village consists of nine prefabricated Quonset Huts™ in the Core City neighborhood. This is the first time in 60 years that this area has seen a major development.

This team designed the buildings at different angles and in different shapes and sizes to create open, outdoor spaces to enhance the community feel of the area.

This has become the perfect spot for artists, designers and small business owners. These newly built social spaces are being used in a variety of ways. There are rental units inside a few of the buildings that range from 475 to 1,600 square feet, an Airbnb, a small coffee shop and even a yoga studio.

The spaces inside of the buildings were specially designed to hang art for exhibits. Translucent and transparent polycarbonate allows natural light to pour inside of the prefabricated Quonset Hut, and crews used other affordable materials to keep the spaces affordable.

To read more about this award and to see the other projects included, click here.