In the morning, the crisp early winter light pours through the clerestory window above my bed. I watch the play of shadows move across the spartan white walls, painting a silhouette of trees and branches swaying in the wind, adorned with the last of the autumn’s lingering leaves. A few minutes later, I get a view of it all from the shower, which overlooks the same landscape from an adjoining window — one that extends down to my ribs as I stand below the stream of water. Although not an exhibitionist by nature, I can’t quite bring myself to pull down the blinds.
Outside, the trees frame a tight-knit urban courtyard and a verdant mid-block pedestrian path that winds through the newly built cluster of five residential volumes. Varying in height, form, and site orientation, the one-, two- and three-storey buildings are each occupied by a pair of suites, creating the first phase of an intimate new community — dubbed Canopy — of 10 homes. From my bathroom window, the openness and intimacy of the milieu is carefully balanced with a sense of privacy: I’m looking out onto the heart of a semi-public space, yet not a single nearby window or door faces directly back at me, with the seeming exposure further mediated by the lush and woolly thicket of plantings woven through the site.
Designed by Edwin Chan’s Los Angeles-based studio for maverick local developers , the recently completed Canopy joins the rapidly evolving Core City neighbourhood just west of downtown. Situated alongside a pair of striking Quonest hut typologies — Caterpillar and — the 10-unit development is the latest addition to Prince Concept’s .
Previously a vacant lot, the 1,579-square-metre site’s five stucco buildings are each arranged as a duplex. Comprising one half of a single-storey duplex, the 54-square-metre studio where I spend the night — the only of the 10 homes that’s rented on a short-term basis — is the smallest of Canopy’s suites, which range up to a two-level, 116-square-metre two-bedroom apartment. Each of the volumes is designed with a strong relationship to the outdoors, opening out to semi-private terraces that deftly dissolve into the larger public space and pathway at the heart of the site.
For Chan and Prince Concepts founder Philip Kafka, the project is an evolution of a longstanding partnership. Over a decade ago, the pair began work on True North, a similarly car-free block of homes that adapted the Quonest hut typology to create expressive yet cost-effective urban housing with mid-block circulation. At Canopy, Chan and Kafka took a big step further. While the spaces between homes at True North are simple walkways and green lawns, Canopy’s homes have a more deliberate relationship with the public realm. Entrances are subtly oriented around a central open space, upper level balconies are similarly organized to facilitate conversations between neighbours and passive supervision of kids at play below.
“I didn’t want to just do a sequel to True North, and it wasn’t going to be another Quonset hut,” says Chan. “We started looking at new ways of creating efficient multi-unit housing with a strong connection to the landscape. Our conversations about Canopy also started in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when wood suddenly became extremely expensive. It was actually a time when a stick frame building ironically cost more than steel stud construction, so the economic discipline of doing a steel and wood hybrid in an efficient way, while creating quality indoor and outdoor spaces, really drove the architecture of the project.”
While the site plan was contoured to preserve existing trees and balance privacy with social life, the architecture was inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s elegantly spare yet light-filled Lafaytte Park townhouses in downtown Detroit, as well as the intimate hutongs — or inner streets — that characterize much of northern China’s vernacular urbanism. A hybrid of American single-family living and dense yet low-rise East Asian urbanism, Canopy’s mid-block circulation eschews the ubiquitous double-loaded corridors of a typical apartment building with a tranquil green space.
According to Kafka, the generosity of Canopy’s outdoor circulation and greenery is a product of Detroit’s unique economic geography. “Purchasing land for a lower cost allows me to have more room in the formula to be generous with tenants,” says Kafka, contrasting the project to developer pro forma that seeks to maximize gross floor area. It’s an unconventional perspective, from a decidedly unconventional practitioner: At Canopy, Kafka served as both developer and landscape designer, overseeing the public realm that ties the homes together.
Though not formally trained as a landscape architect, he learned from the best. Across Core City, American landscape legend Julie Bargmann designed much of the public and shared spaces, from Core City Park and the greenery fronting Caterpillar to the that sits in the centre of the neighbourhood. “Everything I know about landscape architecture I learned from Julie,” says Kafka, describing an unapologetically rich — yet never overly manicured — realm of local species and 121 new trees.
Looking ahead to the project’s next phase, which will introduce another seven buildings and 14 homes to an adjacent block, Kafka is bullish about the future. “With Canopy, Edwin and I wanted to break the traditional 24 unit apartment building from one big cookie into 12 crumbs, where each crumb is a duplex,” he says. “The common corridors, stairwells and elevators are now lush green walkways, public spaces, and miniature parks. Each apartment has multiple facades with windows, and each window is able to look out onto the green spaces.”
So far, Canopy’s opening salvo shows plenty of promise. “We completed the project at the end of summer, so I am excited to see how people live in the semi-public and public spaces,” says Kafka. The first residents include “a PR executive, a music producer, a graphic designer, a furniture designer, a yoga instructor and DJ.” And from certain angles, a delightful easter egg comes into view; local artist Victor Reyes created murals on all five roofs, painting a sky above the forest.
Inside, the gallery-like interiors are elevated by expansive picture windows and clerestories, tall slanted ceilings, as well as simple, exposed plywood finishes — with offcuts ingeniously used as baseboards — and sleek concrete floors. Throughout my brief stay, the changing play of light contours the pared down spaces with surprising depth and texture. I linger in bed, watching the morning’s movement of all those leaves and branches across the slanted ceiling — and I follow it up with one hell of a long shower.
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