Detroit Unreal Estate Agency

“In its apparently catastrophic form… Detroit has recently emerged as a figure for abject urban failure,” writes Andrew Herscher of Detroit Unreal Estate Agency. Herscher, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, and collaborators Mirielle Roddier, Femke Lutgerink, and Partizan Publik‘s Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat, are attempting to redefine the term economy with regard to Detroit’s post-industrial blight.

Herscher and his collaborators define ‘unreal estate’ as “urban space that has slipped through the literal economy, the economy of the market, and entered other economies, included but not limited to those of survival, invention, play and desire.”

In other words, the term ‘unreal estate’ refers to the ‘valueless’ nature of  the crumbling homes, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings that mark so many of Detroit’s aging, left-for-dead neighborhoods. But what Herscher and his colleagues are saying is that ‘valueless’ does not have to mean worthless. The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency believes Detroit’s blighted areas represent a new frontier of creative space, enclaves that can exist in parallel to the market economy they once belonged to.

While Herscher and his colleagues’ mission to reinvigorate blighted communities is multifaceted, the most salient aspect of what they do is document and purchase Detroit’s forgotten properties for reuse by those in the creative community. One recent example is a fire-damaged home that will be transformed into a co-op. And back in April, Unreal Estater Femke Lutgerink, along with Corine Vermeulen-Smith, set up a free weeklong photo studio in the Hamtramck area of Detroit.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Detroit Unreal Estate Agency’s mission is that it looks at sustainability from an entirely different point of view. For more information, click here (note: that’s a fairly large PDF) to read a detailed synopsis of the project written by Herscher and Roddier.

[Image via Detroit Unreal Estate Agency]