Category Archives: Design

It’s a bold statement. We didn’t make it. We probably never would say it, but are so grateful someone else thinks so.

For 15 years Greg Oates has been writing for and about the travel industry. He’s held a number of editorial positions and is currently the executive editor of a magazine specifically targeting the events industry. Greg knows hotels. He also has a personal project called 200 Rooms where he highlights what he thinks are the most interesting small hotels in the world. What a great job!

So you can understand our excitement when a blog posting, urging people to support our Kickstarter campaign, came out with the title 5 Reasons Why Detroit Collision Works is the Most Important Hotel in America. It stopped us dead in our tracks.

His article covers everything from our innovative design and commitment to sustainability to our perspective on Creative Tourism and why it’s the next thing coming down the travel trend pipeline. But most importantly he understands the role that a hotel can make in community place-making, which seems to get lost on a lot of people that are just starting to expect cool bars, decent food, and some art in a hotel. It’s time to expect more.

Greg knows we are way ahead of the curve on this one and has explained it more elegantly than we ever could. Go check it out.

So here it is. Our first ever Kickstarter campaign. People have been telling us to do it for months for the hotel. But it’s too soon for the hotel. Kickstarter is best for immediate, quick projects. And now we’ve got it. If you are on this site you probably already know that Eastern Market has given us land to do a temporary installation of our FIrst Containers to demonstrate and test future offerings for the larger Collision Works boutique hotel and community space being constructed just a few blocks away. It’s a story box!

We want YOU TO BE A PART OF THIS. Go check out the Kickstarter Video 

If you are looking for media info, press release, images, or more about the project go to FIRSTCONTAINER.COM or our Media Page – Thanks!!

While we work on bigger issues of financing Collision Works we are plotting our first demonstration unit pop-up in collaboration with Eastern Market! We will be setting up two units, hopefully by mid spring, to show a mini version of what can happen in the space. Read the rest

Guess what this is a picture of?

The future home of Collision Works on Division in Eastern Market with 220 feet of frontage on the Dequindre Cut! Jogging and biking from our front door all the way to the river! We are on a little hill, so you will be able to see downtown from the second floor! Yesterday we picked up our OFFER TO PURCHASE LETTER. We are buying land from the City of Detroit. There are still a series of due diligence steps we need to go through, but here we go everyone.  Read the rest

We are excited to share with you some early work from KOOP, the architects. We’ve uploaded four schematic drawings to our facebook page and we are pretty excited to see it actually taking shape. They can look a bit daunting in all black and white, stark modern. Fret not. These are just to help map out the actual structure of the building and lack finishes, colors, furniture, and all the arty what-not. Read the rest

Shel will be speaking on the Rogue/HAA panel Friday, September 21st, 6pm at the Mies Storefront in Lafayette Park as part of the Detroit Design Festival. There will also be work in the exhibition from Collision Works and KOOP AM. Come see us!

There is so much happening this week in Detroit – so much good stuff! World’s longest hopscotch! Anecdoted City at Salt & Cedar! Eastern Market After Dark! Take advantage of some of the great programming DC3 and partners put together.

Here is some additional info on the Rogue Panel:

The expansion of digital information and compression of time have affected all design practices. Our society desires instantaneous results, often impairing the design process and product. As Architecture lags behind design fields that can more easily streamline their methods, will The Architect’s role be increasingly minimized? How can Architecture infiltrate current informationally-driven social conditions? Are we on the precipice of an archiCULTURAL SHIFT? The archiCULTURAL SHIFT exhibition and panel discussion seek to address these issues.

Craig Borum
Founding Prinicipal, PLY Architecture

Stephen Zacks
Producer + Artistic Director, Flint Public Art Project

Scott Griffin
Nonopoly

Hayley Bierkle
Kaleidico

David Carleton
Partner + Executive Producer, Mindfield

Fernando Prieto
President, Doodle Home

Shel Kimen
Collision Works

More information is on the Detroit Design Festival website.

Many of you know us as The Detroit Hotel Project. It’s served us well, but it’s time to get to the real business now. Thanks for looking at our new website.

Our mission is to provide space for travelers and Detroit’s many diverse communities to gather, collaborate, and forge new futures through the telling of our stories. We offer a good night sleep, willing companions, and new worlds to explore and create together. Collision Works is our official name moving forward. Collisions can be scary; we don’t always know what’s going to happen. Collisions can be inspiring; sharing and learning shows us new paths. Collision also Works. It brings us together and that’s the first and most important part of building any community. Read the rest

We will be building 36 hotel rooms, the co-working and event space all from repurposed shipping containers. A first and logical question people ask is: Why new construction? Detroit is full of empty buildings! It’s true. But those empty buildings aren’t always in the right place, or the right size, or in a condition that’s manageable to make safe. And besides, we are trying to make something new here.

Detroit was once the logistics capital of the world, shipping more in and out than anywhere else. Fort Street is lined with the relics. Let’s take this readily available and familiar material and use it as the foundation to collect our stories, our past histories and our dreams for the future. Read the rest

We’ve been talking all year about collecting stories from the people of Detroit and partnering with people who are already busy doing this work. We are excited to get going on that work. But we have some pre-work to take care of. In order to make sure we get stories that are meaningful to the people using the space we’ve put together a plan to involve our local community in the creation of a Story Framework.

Read the rest

On March 15th at University of Detroit Mercy in partnership with the Detroit Collaborative Design Center, we invited students, local entrepreneurs, developers, architects, activists, and artists to hear about our ideas and contribute their thoughts, experience and hopes for this project. We are so grateful for all who shared their valuable time with us. We’ve put together a quick summary of what we talked about and what we learned. If you have more questions about the process please don’t hesitate to ask.  Read the rest