Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood features modest mid-rise apartment buildings in much of its intact urban fabric. Set back from the street with large front yards and distinctive recessed porches on multiple levels, these existing models of mid-scale density within the Willis-Selden Local Historic District served as inspiration for the design approach at Six55 Detroit.

The required front yard setback created an opportunity for an expanded and activated public streetscape. The facade reinvents the historic superporch as an enhanced social streetscape amenity. Meeting the ground with a small cafe and landscaped yard, the folded planes create facade depth while maximizing views and providing unique outdoor balconies for units facing West Willis. The common roof deck is situated overlooking the streetscape, creating a connected experience for residents as well as passersby.

The folded front acknowledges the building’s existing neighbors, bending in from larger buildings to one side, and out to align with a smaller Victorian house on the other. Adjusting to its surroundings, the facade geometry frames the building’s entry lobby and activates the front yard setback as a landscaped extension of the pedestrian life of the street. The project’s mix of residential unit typologies appeals to a diverse range of needs, budgets and lifestyles. The program includes 36 compact apartments above a modestly-scaled ground floor commercial space and parking lot. A total of 9 studios, 18 one-bedrooms, and 9 two-bedroom units occupy the C-shaped structure, with 25 parking spaces below.

Housing developers often seek to minimize the ratio of exterior skin to interior area as a means to drive profit. The cost per foot equation is typically further reduced by cladding small areas with higher cost materials like brick, and remaining swaths in cheap materials like vinyl. Six55 Detroit’s approach is more straightforward, with a relatively high skin to interior ratio wrapped in a single mid-priced material. Textured metal cladding pays homage to Detroit’s history of metal fabrication and industrial production with a mix of standing seam and corrugated metal with panels of varying widths offset by bright orange accents highlighting the inset superporch.