Mainstreet Facade Redesign Project (PDF)
Design Michigan

The Mainstreet Facade Redesign Project is a community architecture learning project for middle and high school students that focuses on the design of the mainstreet blockscape. Students get to produce laser prints, collect old mainstreet facade photographs, conduct interviews with the street's business owners, and design and critique their own work.

Students break up into teams to create murals of their laser prints, compare the murals with the older photos, an analyze all the data they have collected to determine what changes could be made to improve the blockscape. At the end of the project, teams consolidate their ideas and sketches into one display, which is then compared with the current look of the street, and each team presents what it learned.

This intensive lesson plan gives students the opportunity to develop several skills: analytical and synthetic thinking, evaluation (developing and applying criteria), individual and group problem solving, social and leadership skills, project organization skills, setting and achieving goals, and communication skills.

The lesson plan is comprehensive, which allows the project to be tailored to a duration of one, two, or four weeks. It includes lengthy, detailed instructions to help ensure that it can be carried out smoothly.