This proposal seeks a grant from the Professional Development Fund in the amount of $2,000 to research and develop a project exploring tactics of preservation as they intersect with health services in Detroit. Given the city's shifting structure, it is apparent that planned downsizing might be the best strategy to accommodate its changes. I would like to research how we might use "shrinking" as a preservation strategy on a building-by-building basis: looking at how a range of building scales, from single-family homes to factories, might be strategically preserved through restricted occupation. The project begins with research—reviewing sites of potential preservation and understanding precedents of "shrinking" and re-use—to begin experiments in architectural form and methods of transposing new organizations onto old structures. Such formal inquiries begin to make demands on the value of preservation itself: what does closing down existing architecture in turn open up? Concurrent and related to this project of preservation is an investigation into public health issues in the city. As the infrastructures of the city transform, so too might its public services. This project produces two strands of inquiry: interpreting historical character while understanding new modes of collective and transient occupation with a focus on healthcare facilities. Development funds would go primarily towards research, documentation, and material production—the project begins with analysis but results in a novel design strategy. It is conceived as a teaching tool: a methodology of experimental preservation that will be used as a studio model and pedagogical approach.