What’s Next A2? invites residents of Ann Arbor, Michigan (referred to locally as A2) to consider the future of their city—focusing on the relationship between housing abundance, neighborhood livability, and regulatory change.
December 13, 2025
Ann Arbor Farmers Market
315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
Work by University of Michigan faculty and students put forward a range of tools and housing designs that imagine the urban block as the social and environmental foundation for the city’s next steps.
Taking place in the center of Ann Arbor’s civic life—the farmers market—the exhibition engages a broad public audience. Taking to the streets, students and faculty connect with residents in their daily routines, using dollhouse-scale architectural and urban models to spark conversations about the future of their neighborhoods.
Moving beyond the developer playbook, the projects enable residents to actively shape their blocks through flexible lot sizes, incremental infill around existing houses, and cooperative dwellings grounded in point-access block code reform, bio-based construction, and shared spaces. The exhibition positions residents as drivers of urban transformation, pooling resources and advancing regulatory reform and collective ownership to design more livable, shared, and uplifting neighborhoods.
In collaboration with the Ann Arbor Community Land Trust, the team is also holding workshops with focus groups across Ann Arbor District Library’s branch locations.
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
“What’s Next A2? Housing, Livability, and Property at the Scale of the Urban Block,” Ann Arbor, 2025. © Gabriel Cuellar.
Exhibition team: Cadaster (Athar Mufreh, Gabriel Cuéllar, Malak Atwi, and Nick Grosh) and the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
University of Michigan student contributors: Sayyoung Chang, Shijie Chen, Philippe Kame, Sujeong Koo, Brianna Manzor, and Riley Montgomery
Exhibition partners: Ann Arbor Farmers Market and Ann Arbor District Library
Special thanks: Craig Borum, Antje Steinmuller, Jonathan Massey, Max McCumber, De Peter Yi, and our family and friends
This project was made possible thanks to the SOM Foundation’s 2023 Research Prize and the support of the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
