>> ... Next Generation ...

Ouilding
Community

teict#c

I

III

A conversation with
Noah Resnick.

VIVIAN HENOCH I SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

ooking the very picture of
eclectic urban chic, Detroit
architect Noah Resnick scans
the sleek contemporary interior
of the new Cafe Con Leche Nord on West
Grand in the New Center area, where we
meet to photograph and discuss his latest
design work in the city.
"You know, I didn't really dress for this
photo," he tells me, putting on his jacket
for appearance's sake before I snap his
picture.
Serious, thoughtful and multi-talented,
Resnick is a man of studied answers.
In conversation, if it strikes one that he
seems to be more of a professor than
an architect, it's because he has found a
niche in both the worlds of academia and
urban architectural design.
Originally from Miami, Fla., Resnick
teaches and practices in the city of Detroit
as director of the Master of Architecture
Program at the University of Detroit Mercy
(UDM) and is a principal of uRbanDetail,
an intimate research-based architecture
and urban design studio that he co-
founded with his wife, Melissa Dittmer,
a current Detroit Revitalization fellow
and the director of Architecture + Urban
Design at Bedrock Real Estate Services.
They met in Chicago. Both earned
their bachelor's of architecture degrees
at the Illinois Institute of Technology and
together focused on urban design in their
graduate studies.

From D19 %aim-
To Big Venture!

"I started teaching to become a better architect.
And now I practice to become a better teacher."

— Noah Resnick

32

July 2 • 2015

What influenced Resnick and Dittmer to
move to Detroit nine years ago?
"Professionally, we wanted to move
to a city where we could make a
contribution. As much as we loved living
in New York and Chicago, those cities
were just too big and not a fit for our
particular fields of study. The subject of
my thesis was Detroit, and I already had
academic connections here," he says.
"Melissa's degree is in urban design
focused on issues of post-industrial cities
— issues New York City just didn't have.
So we decided to see what we could do
in Detroit where we actually could have
some impact."
It would not take long. As Resnick
observes, "Within five years after moving
to Detroit, we owned a Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe townhouse in Lafayette
Park. I was a tenure-track professor at a
university where I loved to teach. We had
our own firm, had built our own projects.
And we were a family with two little boys.
"Had we stayed in New York, it would
have taken us 20 years to have what we
had established on a fast track in Detroit.
And with children, it would have been
impossible for us to afford to live in the
city anyway," he adds.
Resnick and Dittmer have since moved
to Grosse Pointe, though Lafayette Park
continues to be Noah's favorite place in

the city, one he considers to be not only
unique to Detroit but also a "one-of-a-
kind location on the planet."

Only in Detroit

With professional experience in
architectural design ranging from a mall/
spa complex in Switzerland to high-profile
Central Artery sites in downtown Boston,
to a high-end townhouse building in New
York City, Resnick has remained firmly
grounded in projects well-suited to his
interests in Detroit.
In his studio class last summer,
he assigned students the project of
reimagining the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue.
"I knew about the RFP [requests
for proposals] and the board's plans
to renovate. I was familiar with the
developments in Capital Park through
Melissa's work with Dan Gilbert's group.
The synagogue, a beautiful building
with history, seemed the right size and
a perfect client to give students the
experience of doing real work in the city,"
he says.
As a result of his students' project,
Resnick has been recruited to the
synagogue board to serve in an advisory
capacity as plans move forward with the
design firm, McIntosh Poris.
At UDM, Resnick is now a tenured
professor, director of a department with
a small faculty, which means a year-
round schedule of teaching, writing
and research. Selective with his choices,
generally he takes on only one project at a
time, each one in alignment with what he
wants to be doing with "clients who have
a business, a foundation or a project that
has some presence in the community."
One of Resnick's first projects in
Detroit — and possibly a turning point —
was Roosevelt Park, which he designed in
2008 with a colleague, Tadd Heidgerken
(now of et al. design) and Slow's Bar BQ
owner Phil Cooley.
"What an experience," he recalls.
"Imagine designing and building this
little park in front of the train station in
Corktown. Now here's a piece of city park
that I can say I had a hand in creating.
In New York, Chicago or Boston, there
would have been no way; it would never
have happened."
Between pro bono and commercial
opportunities, Resnick has continued
his work with Cooley and expanded his
network of urban business owners, artists
and developers to complete projects
including:
• Slows to Go on Cass Avenue in
Midtown, opened in 2012
• A temporary exhibit space in
Lafayette Park called the Mies Gallery that
also hosted a pop-up shop for Cafe Con
Leche (2012)
• Technical assistance for Firehouse
Detroit, a multimedia, multifaceted
performance project conceived by