The Moross House
Christopher Moross originally built the building in 1843, which makes it the oldest residential brick building in Detroit and has been extended twice in its lifetime. Records show that the building was restored once in 1969. As of January 13th, 1972, the Moross House, also known as Jones House, has been registered with the National Register Of Historic Places.
The current owners purchased the neglected building and plan to turn it into an art gallery and studio for their own work as well as an event space. The garden is planned as an integral part of the program and will be redesigned. The owners plan to achieve economic viability for the restoration and maintenance by using the space for catering opportunities, weddings, cocktail parties, gallery vernissages, and company receptions.
The adaptive reuse of the building requires a small addition to the building for exhibition spaces and a roof terrace for garden parties and other events. A new additional stair provides garden access and a second mean of egress, required for the second floor. The addition to the building is envisioned to be in harmonious composition with the historic building in its size, proportion, and materiality, while expressing a contemporary character to distinguish itself from the historic building.
In addition to the renovation of the Moross House, a garage with studio is planned for the south side of the property. Since the owners will need extra spaces for producing and photographing their artwork, the garage and studio makes it possible to alter the historic Moross House with minimum invasiveness. The garage also functions as loading and staging area during events and for material necessary to produce the artwork. The studio above the garage is made of brick equal to the new addition and the historic structure and is meant to be integral to the overall composition of buildings in character, proportion and dimensional relationships.
Building Type: Gallery and Art Studio, Adaptive Reuse
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
Service: Architectural Design, Interior Design, Landscape Design
Client: Schinkel Fine Art, Linda Shinkle Rodney and Theodore Shinkle
Site Area: 8,844 sqft
GSF: 5,261 sqft
Year: 2019
Team: Lars Gräbner, Christina Hansen, Xinying Li, José Arturo Joglar-Cadilla, Liz Burroughs, Chris Pine