The project is organized around three interdependent elements: the museum buildings, a site-scale screen derived from the historic column grid and building silhouettes, and a network of community spaces at ground level. New structures occupy the footprints of former Packard buildings, while the screen preserves the site’s monumental presence without replicating its original function. Together, these elements establish a new sense of place that acknowledges both memory and absence.

Museum exhibitions are located on the second level and connected by a continuous circulation path, or “spine,” that links interior and exterior spaces while maintaining visual contact with the site. Each exhibition is conceived as an immersive environment rather than a neutral gallery, translating industrial processes such as assembly, stamping, storage, and power into bodily sensations of movement, pressure, heat, and fatigue. These spatial experiences parallel Detroit’s industrial trajectory with shared human conditions of energy, exhaustion, and transformation.

At ground level, the project prioritizes community access through makerspaces, a black box theater, green spaces, markets, and recreational zones, supported by new transit infrastructure including a bus depot. The landscape is organized through a patchwork of plazas, meadows, forested walks, and reflective spaces, creating both active and contemplative zones. By transforming industrial remnants into civic infrastructure, the Packard Plant is reimagined as a site where history is actively inhabited rather than passively remembered.