Lafayette Apartment Towers vs Fort Washington Plaza

Comparing the Lafayette Apartment Towers and the Fort Washington Plaza is interesting because they both rise in Detroit, MI, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, Mies van der Rohe and Louis G. Redstone & Associates, and were completed at different points in time. They were finished more than 6 years apart.

This contrast within the same city allows us to see how different creative minds interpreted the evolving needs of Detroit across time.

Let's take a closer look!

The Lafayette Apartment Towers is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 213ft (65m) with 22 floors above ground, while the Fort Washington Plaza reaches 197ft (60m) with 16 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the Lafayette Apartment Towers and the Fort Washington Plaza were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the International Style style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Mies van der Rohe and Louis G. Redstone & Associates followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Lafayette Apartment Towers is primarily residential, while the Fort Washington Plaza is primarily commercial.

The Lafayette Apartment Towers offers 584 residential units.

The Fort Washington Plaza also provides 524 parking spaces.

Both towers share the same structural solution, a Frame system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

However, when it comes to the facade, both buildings use different approaches. The Lafayette Apartment Towers uses a Window Wall facade, while the Fort Washington Plaza uses a Curtain Wall facade.

A Window Wall facade like the one seen in the Lafayette Apartment Towers uses panels fitted between floor slabs, leaving slab edges visible, while a curtain-wall facade like the one seen in the Fort Washington Plaza uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure.