An architectural firm led by four Taubman College faculty has been recognized with a Design Vanguard award from Architectural Record. Founded in 2016, T+E+A+M is only the second ever Michigan firm to win this highly regarded award.
T+E+A+M was founded by Thom Moran, associate professor of architecture; Ellie Abrons, associate professor of architecture and director of the U-M Digital Studies Institute; Adam Fure, associate professor of architecture; and Meredith Miller, associate professor of architecture and director of the master of architecture program.
The group began collaborating in 2015 and officially formed in 2016 after presenting their project “Detroit Reassembly Plant” at that year’s Venice Biennale. Since then, they have worked on a variety of speculative and practical adaptive reuse projects, including their largest project to date, “Building in a Building,” a new commercial and community space in Detroit’s East Village neighborhood which reuses the facade of an existing building.
Selected from across the world, Design Vanguard winners are recognized not only for their practical projects, but for their potential to advance the next generation of architects through innovative and speculative design. T+E+A+M was one of 10 winners for the 2025 program and one of only four firms selected from the United States.
“We’ve tried to forge a different model of practice, not from a top-down ideological position, but something more emergent,” said Abrons in an interview with Architectural Record.
As part of the award, T+E+A+M was featured in an article by Architectural Record.
