{"id":2349,"date":"2019-05-09T09:08:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=2349"},"modified":"2019-05-07T16:38:02","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T20:38:02","slug":"class-of-2019-matthew-northcott-realizing-his-dreams-of-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2019\/05\/09\/class-of-2019-matthew-northcott-realizing-his-dreams-of-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2019: Matthew Northcott, realizing his dreams of architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matthew
Matthew Northcott ’19’s vision for the underused waterfront in the Jefferson\/Chalmers area of Detroit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matthew Northcott knew early in high school that he wanted to study architecture in college. Thanks to the Loranger Nautilus Endowed Scholarship, he was able to achieve his dream at University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s School of Architecture.<\/p>\n

The Loranger Nautilus Endowed Scholarship is funded by School of Architecture alumnus Warren Loranger, \u201951, and awarded to an incoming School of Architecture freshman. Northcott was the first recipient of the scholarship, and said without it he would not have been able to attend Detroit Mercy. With the scholarship backing his education, he focused on developing himself and discovered a passion for developing the Detroit community.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew
Matthew Northcott shows off his project designs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Establishing a foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a student at Lutheran High School Norwest in Rochester Hills, Northcott participated in an art class where students designed a house and built a model. He was hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked that project and that is what pushed me in the direction of architecture,\u201d said Northcott. He looked for nearby schools that could offer him a solid education and plenty of experience in the field. When he decided on Detroit Mercy, he had no idea it would lead to an interest in Detroit and a desire to be part of the city\u2019s revitalization.<\/p>\n

Northcott said he didn\u2019t have much experience with Detroit before becoming a Detroit Mercy student. His exposure to the city through work experience within the architecture program led to his master\u2019s thesis and research and ideas that might one day be used to connect and stimulate an underused area of Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center as an intern two summers ago. They are a nonprofit, community-centric design firm. They do architecture work, but they also do small scale interventions, like painting a mural in a local park. I definitely think that working there helped foster my love of the City of Detroit,\u201d said Northcott.<\/p>\n

In his third year, Northcott said he worked on one of this favorite projects \u2014 West Riverfront Park in Detroit. He said the students helped transform a large public space into something people would want to use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat project helped lead to me my thesis. I realized Detroit isn\u2019t currently using its assets of the riverfront. We don\u2019t have a lot of connection to our waterfront as other cities do,\u201d Northcott said, so he set out to find an area that could reclaim the waterfront and make it a part of the community.<\/p>\n

Research and discovery<\/strong><\/p>\n

Northcott began researching the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood, located along the Detroit River between Grosse Pointe and Belle Isle. It\u2019s a section the city wants to revitalize and Northcott put his effort into coming up with a plan for the four parks in the area by listening to the residents and creating a plan that would not only enhance the parks, but connect the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project was one full year of work, starting last summer,\u201d Northcott said. \u201cI specifically wanted to find out what the community that lives there wanted to do with the parks. I conducted a survey that helped me determine what types of programs they wanted to happen in the parks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northcott said the first half of the thesis year was all research \u2014collecting previous feedback from other projects and conducting his own. He said he combined that with information from the city\u2019s ongoing data collection about community engagement and feedback he learned from attending meetings of the neighborhood, which he still does today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt guided me toward designing a community center. For the past decade, they haven\u2019t had a community center in that area,\u201d Northcott said. \u201cThe residents have been telling the city they want a community center. Part of my project was designing the community center on the riverfront in one of the parks for small-scale gatherings and community programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating connections<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through the research process, Northcott found another aspect of his thesis that needed to be addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of disconnectivity in the neighborhood. It\u2019s divided up by dead-end streets and canals. I was looking for ways to connect the community together. I designed a network of pedestrians paths that emanate out of the community center building. I wanted to connect the parks into the neighborhood. This turned into a large, neighborhood-wide project and addressed several issues,\u201d said Northcott.<\/p>\n

Northcott said the thesis experience was an independent process and he drew a lot on his previous coursework and experiences to create a meaningful project. He said the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood was really receptive to the process and while he explained to them this was a thought experiment, they still helped out and with ideas and feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all self-directed,\u201d Northcott said. \u201cThere is a thesis adviser and you can ask them questions, but it\u2019s a very independent process. That\u2019s definitely a good thing. Knowing what to do was tough, but I learned a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working on this thesis project has helped Northcott develop a sense of what he wants to do in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a goal in my career \u2014 to help make community engagement a big part of the design process. We could definitely do more to listen to the people we are designing for. In the future, I definitely plan on staying in the Detroit area and designing to take part in Detroit\u2019s revitalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Rebecca Wyatt Thomas<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Northcott knew early in high school that he wanted to study architecture in college. Thanks to the Loranger Nautilus Endowed Scholarship, he was able to achieve his dream at University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s School of Architecture. The Loranger Nautilus Endowed Scholarship is funded by School of Architecture alumnus Warren …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,29,33,7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2019\/05\/northcott-featured2.jpg?fit=600%2C315&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-BT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2353,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349\/revisions\/2353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}