This project juxtaposes archeology and techno to create new life in a re-emerging downtown.

Two young developers with little experience with buildings had a dream to make a simmering new nightspot in Detroit. Amidst the downtown business district and heavy daylight pedestrian traffic, they found their site, a comer building in a diminishing state. Originally a bank when construction was completed in 1926, there were repeated, Ill-advised renovations and many tenants from the 1970s onward, including fast food restaurants, delis, and cafes.

The developers envisioned a vibrant, alive nightclub to attract diverse people. They sought a space that while arrayed around a large dance floor, still offered a variety of different situations that varied in conspicuity as well as privacy. They wanted techno DJs and musicians to oversee the action and channel the mood.

The architects' solution embraced the existing original elements. These include an outstanding Moorish Revival terra cotta and limestone exterior with a second-floor perimeter arcade, a curved sliding bronze entry door, concrete structural columns, and a mezzanine level bank floor manager's office. What was not readily apparent was uncovered through a careful archeology. The most prized find was the building's original suspended plaster ceiling with its hand-stenciled detailing, which covers two-thirds of the space.

The architects retained and restored these elements; accentuating in a series of ways the contrast between them and the provocative, contemporary club the developers sought.

First, the exterior was washed; during the day, the facade is representative of its original, exotic and elaborate and now refreshed look. During club hours, the windows are lit, throwing the facade into a silhouette. Clubbers enter to find an intimate space consisting of a dance floor, bars, lounge areas, entry stair, and service areas.

The space revolves around the dance floor; people are visually connected to the musicians. But there is still much spatial variety. People can move away from the dance floor to sit or stand in different lounges at the edges of the space. In so doing, they add to the atmosphere by passing by scrim curtains, perforated metals, and frosted glass, all of which filters their actions while providing a glimpse of their movement. Coordinated lighting schemes shine on and through these filtering elements, making them double as projection materials. Thus, people, elements, and light combine to enhance the layering throughout the space.

On the mezzanine level, the former bank manager's office became the perfect solution for DJs and lighting technicians, who mix and watch the dance floor action through the office's original opening. Above, the hand-stenciled ceiling adds warmth to the interior surfaces and materials, which also include concrete floors, steel handrails. and glass partitions.

The architects placed new objects within geometrical guidelines to simultaneously contrast and respect the existing architecture; part of the strategy is to emphasize the intimacy of the club. Drink rails and bars - fashioned from steel columns with illuminated colored plexi-glass panels -ring the perimeter. Drink and work surfaces Include steel pans with sealed, cast-in-ptace concrete. Entry stair and mezzanine handrails form a continuous edge around the perimeter of the dance floor.

There are many spatial experiences here. Patrons note how they interact with the selected finishes and various elements. They sit in leather booths or on plastic couches, perch down near the fim on cloth pod seating or sit high on aluminum bar chairs, touch metal or wood rails and millwork, walk on concrete and wood floors, dance in the spotlight or converse in the shadows. Through careful restoration and sensitive addition of materials, new, provocative life is brought to the site. Archeology meets techno.