Inspiration from Detroit's Past - Frank Lloyd Wright's Cooperative Homesteads Project

Okay. Confession time. No, I am not from California, or Oregon, or New York City. I'm not a trendy design professional, I'm not an architect, I don't come from a family of builders. Guess what I do for a living. C'mon - guess! Here it is: I'm an autoworker, and I live in Detroit.

Now, Detroit is not the pit that most people from other parts of the country think it is. The city has had a lot of rough times, true, but actually it's an alright place to live (I really appreciated this article in Dwell about Detroit). The weather is really nice here too. Kind of wet, with cold winters, but we really don't get too much snow and summertime is a dream. Spring and fall are both lovely. Actually, I grew up close to Ann Arbor, which is pretty groovy. It's where all the hippies go to engineering school, at U of M, although I went to Purdue, but anyway.

So yeah, I'm an autoworker. I don't work "on the line" or anything, but I am in the biz. My company makes car parts (darn good ones too!). And I live in the burbs of Detroit. And even though I've forever dreamed of moving to California I will always have a soft spot for my hometown.

And that's one reason I've always been fascinated by a certain Frank Lloyd Wright project from the late thirties / early forties, planned for Detroit, but never built. It's the Cooperative Homesteads Project. Wright and his team from Taliesin designed it for a coop formed of auto workers and teachers - idealists, consistent with the times (unions, socialism, progressives, artists, etc.). It was intended to offer quality but low cost housing these people could afford, in a planned community where they could return home from their factory jobs and then tend their shared gardens in Detroit's long summer evenings, growing much of their own food.




The project, was an experiment that was way ahead of its time. Not so much the community planning aspect, which is so of the era it is kind of cliche, but rather in its construction and aesthetic.

First of all, the homes were going to have rammed earth walls. That's right, rammed earth walls. Wright was experimenting with it at the time, and was going to use it in the project as a low cost wall system the future homeowners could erect themselves. Second, Wright employed earth berming to help further protect the walls, provide extra insulation, and block cold winter winds. A broad roof was planned to further shelter the earthen walls from Detroit's damp weather, and keep out summer sun.

Inside, the house had small bedrooms, one large main living space, built-in furniture, and a great hearth. Natural light came in from windows on both sides, and there was a bank of nice big floor-to-ceiling windows in the main living area. There was an attached shed/cellar for storing tools and vegetables from the garden. The homes look extremely livable, despite their compact size.





Ultimately, World War II intervened, and the project was abandoned. A few units were actually started, but never finished (apparently the yet unprotected walls literally washed away from exposure). It is sad, because for a small worker's home the design was truly modern and beautiful. A simple, modest home, but really sleek. I've always thought it was one of the coolest designs Wright had done. It appeals to my populist streak, but with high style.

In his wonderful book, The Natural House, Wright mentions the project, and commented that "the nature of the scheme is apropos to so much of the building problem in our country that it is on record here for what it may be worth." Sadly, I think not much has changed, and so I present the project here as an interesting example of elegant, thoughtful, paradigm challenging, affordable housing concept that should continue to inspire us.

I think the project is also discussed in the great book on Wright's Usonian Houses written by John Sergeant.

You can read a nice writeup on the project at the website of Aaron G. Green Associates Inc. Mr. Green was a student of Wright and worked on the project. Click here to jump straight to the Cooperative Homesteads page.

Image credits - Aaron G. Green Associates, Inc. site