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Detroit Prep, the free public charter elementary school on Detroit’s East Side, has seen its ups and downs. But this renovated school building, formerly Anna Joyce Elementary (designed in 1916 by Wirt Rowland), hints at a brighter future for the community’s next generation.
When cofounder Kyle Smitley first came across the building in 2017, it had been boarded up for a decade. Inside it was completely dark and two or three feet of peeling paint strips covered the floors, “making it difficult to realize that the flooring was even wood,” recalls John Waller, managing director of Gensler Detroit.
“It had good bones but was in bad shape, and Kyle kept telling the design team it had potential,” adds John. “We all just had to realize it.”
For Gensler, some of the biggest challenges included how to bring the building up to current code without disrupting the character that had originally intrigued the firm. Instead of hiding all the electrical systems in a dropped ceiling, John and his team chose to keep the corridors open as they were originally constructed. The hardwood floors were saved and stained darker, even though a luxury vinyl would’ve been cheaper, and all of the classroom’s built-ins were kept and modified to fit the number of students in today’s classes. Minimalist lighting was added to allow the charm of the 20th-century design to shine.
Yes, a lot of the budget went to new plumbing and electric, plus reinforcing the roof with structural steel to hold the seven-ton HVAC units, but that just meant Gensler had to get creative. “We kept as much as we could even if it looked raw,” Waller says. “It was important to respect and maintain those details.”
For Kyle, maintaining the building’s history was an important consideration, but she also wanted the space to feel joyful. During one sleepless night with her newborn daughter in February of 2019, her exhausted brain “connected all of the pieces” and a palette emerged. Looking to the whimsy of Wes Anderson films, she now knew how to tackle the interiors.
Sophisticated design and elementary schools don’t often go hand in hand, but why shouldn’t they? “We didn’t want it to be sterile, and we wanted to activate as much space for learning as possible,” she says. All the interior design work from hallway details to paints and stains to the punchy bathroom tile layouts was the doing of Hudson and Sterling.
Pastel blue and yellow, colors that were already present on the second floor, are now found throughout the building in their original shades, plus a soft purple and mint green. (Sherwin-Williams Paint donated 200 gallons of paint.) Fireclay Tile, a partner Kyle raves about, donated $150,000 worth of tile to further beautify the rejuvenated building. “They really came shoulder to shoulder with us and immediately understood why this project matters,” she says. (Thanks to the relationships between brands and the interior design firm, the school was able to get more than $200,000 worth of donations like these.)
The office’s large circular desk, also designed by Hudson and Sterling, is modeled after one in the Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel. Charles Dickens anthologies are piled high, and there’s plenty of vintage photography, accessories from a local estate sale, and pieces from Target, Article, and Wayfair. The framed art, printed directly from the Library of Congress, was donated by Framebridge.
The community aspect of this project and the amount of support Kyle and her team have received continue to astound her. They started off with the goal of saving this architectural masterpiece, but the school has “breathed life back into the neighborhood and represents the true meaning of the word regrowth,” says engineer Dominic Paone of Integrated Design Solutions. The 100-plus-year-old building is now a home for Detroit schoolchildren for generations to come. Who wouldn’t want to learn in this happy, charming building?
