From Industrial to Post-Industrial City; The Detroit Case And An Adaptive Reuse Proposal For Highland Park Ford Plant

Global changes and the transition from industrial to post-industrial cities, sees a rapid growth of the services sector more than production. This transition toward services have redesigned the lifestyle and the urban structure of cities. Most of the cities that changed through industrialization during the last two centuries, nowadays face the issue of unused spaces and derived problems. For this reason, the questions related to adaptive reuse and regeneration of the industrial cities bring the need for a multidisciplinary intervention. This thesis includes a historical overview of the transformation of the cities because of the process of industrialization and post-industrialization and more in detail of Detroit. It is essential to understand what has happened in the past to make it better for the future. Adaptive reuse is a sustainable approach, and it can be implemented effectively in Detroit, the city that once was full of energy, people, and with a significant leadership role in the automotive industry. Nowadays faces economic problems, and represents one of the cities with the largest violent crime rate seen in the United States. It is known as one of the main reasons for these problems, the large amount of unused land. More than half of crimes cases happen in these areas. The second part of this thesis is focused on the Highland Park Ford Plant, an abandoned industrial site with a lot of potential for future developments. An adaptive reuse proposal is part of the solution, this way keeping the memory and redeveloping a degraded area.