Lessons Frozen in Time

During the summer of 2009, I surveyed the condition of over 80 Detroit Housing Commission single-family homes scattered through-out the City of Detroit. We would ritually unwrap hermetically sealed homes and disturbingly step into them fully furnished and untouched from the minute they were sealed. We became unwilling peeping toms, accidentally spying on personal belongings. We would survey every room, inadvertently glimpsing table tops with notes to love ones, walls with pictures of friends and relatives, closets filled with clothing, and pantries still filled with groceries. I imagined an elderly person, whisked off in an emergency, never to return. Their memorial: a boarded home filled with a lifetime of unclaimed memories.

These homes are filled with lessons. They are a frozen moment revealing the meaning of home. As we renovate them, there's an opportunity to listen to their spirit. To take notice of duct taped drafty windows, abandoned security systems, basements converted into bedrooms, mildewed bathroom floors, grease stained kitchen walls and double bolted bedrooms doors. It would be easy to ignore these simple observations, but if you listen closely, one can hear its spirit teaching lessons in home weatherization, energy conservation, aging-in-place and barrier-free design. These homes are laboratories waiting to reveal how to bring Detroit into the 21st century. The question becomes, is anyone listening?