Driving into Motor City, the beautiful and towering 18-story Michigan Central Station is hard to miss — it is both a Beaux-Arts Classical landmark (standing out even in a city rich with historical architecture) but also a famous abandonment, which became emlematic of the city’s decline, at least until now.

This train station operated on and off from dedication in 1914 to its final closure in 1988, a literal and symbolic victim of Detroit’s own automobile boom and suburban flight. Purchased nearly 100 years ago by Henry Ford, the building passed through many hands in the subsequent decades, before being purchased again by the Ford Motor Company this year for redevelopment.

With designers from Snohetta, Ford is turning the structure into a hub for its autonomous vehicle development and deployment, making it an anchor for the company’s Corktown campus. Following restoration and renovation of the structure, originally designed by the same architects behind New York’s famous Grand Central Terminal, the mixed-use first floor concourse will be reopened to the public with restaurants and retail.

More on the restoration: “As Ford envisions the future of mobility, Ford and Snøhetta will rethink existing cities in addition to creating new urban spaces and mobility systems through responsible and sustainable urban planning, product design, and business practices. New and innovative roadways, parking facilities, and integrated pedestrian connections are just some of the design considerations that will highlight the positive impact of Ford’s future mobility technologies. Ford plans to implement the first City of Tomorrow study in Corktown, with other cities in mind for the future.”

For years, the building was a mecca for urban explorers who would enter illegally to explore and photograph the ruin, as well as a feature in numerous films and television shows. Going forward, it will once again become a kind of urban transportation hub, but one of a very different nature.

Michigan native and area resident George Gregory attended the public press conference outside the station announcing the plan, and noticed some changes on the site. “The fence is bigger and about 250 yards further back,” he observed, and the building looks better, presumably in part because the previous owner “put in new windows … and made other changes.” Leading up to the announcement, “rumors have abounded for weeks,” says Gregory. “Local real estate prices have skyrocketed. An abandoned hotel in the area has a For Sale sign on it.”

Conceived of as a hybrid, multi-functional work of landscape architecture, this award-winning design proposes digging down to the bedrock beneath Central Park and erecting a reflective “horizontal skyscraper” around its perimeter, providing 7 square miles of peripheral housing with views out over the park.

Designed by Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu and dubbed New York Horizon, the concept received first place in eVolo‘s annual skyscraper competition. The proposal includes a contiguous 1,000-foot-tall (and 100-foot-deep) structure, creating a looping horizontal-and-vertical skyscraper (or: sidescraper).

By carving into the ground, new inhabitable areas are created, while mega-structure winds along the freshly-exposed cliff faces. The designers see this move as an inversion of the typical relationship between landscapes and buildings, with architecture forming a framework around outdoor space (versus a plaza surrounding a traditional skyscraper).

They also maintain that the project would democratize access to the park by providing more people (who live in the complex) with greater proximity while retaining access points along the periphery for rest of the public (much as currently configured). On the one hand, this approach would indeed create more housing units with direct access to and views of the park, decreasing distance for many residents. On the other hand, the resulting residential units would no doubt still remain expensive real estate, and, in most regards, the park is already quite open and accessible.

The displaced dirt and rocks from the excavation would be used to create additional three-dimensional topographies around the city, added to parks and open spaces and creating greater variety within the urban park system both in and around Manhattan.

Clearly, this semi-subterranean vision will never become a real project in Central Park, but the prospect of excavating a landscape and creating housing around the periphery is an intriguing idea for future underground urban design, particularly for dense cities lacking residential units and open space. Perhaps sidescrapers will yet see the light of day.

Commissioned for Guatemala City, this weighty megalithic structure is set to be the largest museum commemorating Mayan culture and history in Central America. Its architectural success, however, comes as much from its empty spaces as from its imposing structure, as evidenced by the eight-story central void shown above.

At a glance, the building looks like a monolithic box set upon a piecemeal plinth, the latter helping to give the former a sense of impossible mass. This humbling exterior gives way to an only somewhat-more-human-scaled series of spatial experiences inside.

Heavy stone-clad walls pierced by patchwork voids conspire to reinforce the sense of visual thickness that permeates the project, referencing ancient Mayan temples in terms of architectural materials and concepts but also sheer scale.

This region-referencing design resulted from international collaboration between Harry Gugger Studio of Switzerland and Over,Under of Boston. More details from these firms below.

“The new Museo Maya de América is among the most ambitious cultural projects under development in Central America. It is planned to house one of the world’s most significant collections of objects, artefacts, artworks, textiles and knowledge relating to the history and culture of the Mayan Civilisation.”

“Located on the northern edge of L’Aurora Park, the new museum building will form the culmination of a cultural axis that includes the Guatemalan Museum of Contemporary Art and the Children’s Museum. This dense cluster of cultural institutions, in tandem with the large open spaces of the adjacent park will become a focal point for tourists and residents alike.”

An open central “void extends down in to the parking levels below ground, providing an interesting route up into the museum and a special place to display underworld-related artefacts. The landscaped roof of the museum is once again given back to the public with a series of different areas including a restaurant and terrace, roof gardens and viewing decks all accessible from the Cenote.”

“The large surface of the roof will also be used to collect rainwater in a manner recalling traditional Maya practices by drawing water through a series of channels into the Cenote, enhancing the museums commitment to the environment through water recycling.”

Boldly curved and cantilevered into midair, these plant-wrapped stairs are designed to provide more than just a means of moving from one floor to another.

Stepping onto them takes occupants temporarily away from concrete floors and columns, then into and through a unique miniature ecosystem of warm and living materials.

This staircase by Paul Cocksedge for the Ampersand building in London is punctuated by platforms overlooking a central atrium.

These circular areas act as impromptu self-contained break and gathering spaces removed from the bustle of each main office floor.

Standing out not just physically but also materially, the lively-grained wooden curves are bedecked with thin stem-like strands of white metal. In turn, these support planters that supplant the role of traditional hand rails while still providing physical and psychological safety and support.

Each set of stairs is supported by the floors themselves, thus rendered structurally independent of a more ordinary central-column approach.

Further interactivity is woven into the biological side of the design in the form of herbs that employees can nurture, grow and ultimately pluck from the rails, facilitating a sort of in-office garden and adding a bit of mint to their tea or spice to their lunch.