Cranbrook continuum.

Located in the American Midwest 20 miles from the centre of Detroit, Cranbrook was founded in the early 1900s by newspaper magnate George Booth. A utopian experiment which grew out of the Arts and Crafts Movement as a counterpoint to Fordist industrial production, it was envisaged as a collective educational community in which intimate involvement with craft would improve the material circumstances and, more importantly, the moral character of its citizens. The transformation from vision to reality both in the design of the estate and in the development of its educational philosophy - was achieved through a 25-year partnership between Booth and Eliel Saarinen, who came to the United States after being awarded second place in Chicago Tribune Tower competition in 1922. Saarinen's own immersion in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Finland, exemplified by the Community of architects which he had established at Hvittrask, was well-matched to Booth's experiment.

There is no architectural house style at Cranbrook. Instead of being rooted in typology or tradition, Saarinen's work there focused upon innovation. Each building was a fresh response to landscape, programme, and both the practicalities and sheer enjoyment of architectural production. This spirit of innovation was to become even more marked in the work of Saarinen's son, Eero.

The artisans imported to construct the buildings at Cranbrook also lived and taught on the estate, exemplars of Saarinen's emphasis upon craft as a way of redeeming production and creating an ethical existence for the worker. This emphasis was subtly shifted by Charles Eames who, while working at Cranbrook in the late '30s and early '40s, used production to validate craft.

Today, the 315-acre estate is a rare example of complete integration of architecture, planning and landscape in the United States. The Cranbrook Educational Community - which includes the Academy of Art, the Institute of Science, a private coeducational boarding school, and a primary school - continues to focus upon the arts as an important part of the curriculum. Although now absorbed within Detroit's suburbs, the self-conscious withdrawal that underpinned its utopian origins still prevails. Cranbrook has the aura of a special and mysterious place, a self-contained idealised community set apart from the outside world.

During the past 10 years, Dan Hoffman has completed an impressive series of projects at Cranbrook which both draw upon the tradition of this unique American institution and renew its spirit of innovative design. Appointed as head of the architecture studio at the Academy of Art in 1986, Hoffman brought considerable experience of working in practice together with a theoretical underpinning inspired by his former teacher, John Hejduk. This combination of pragmatism and poetry proved to be well-suited to Cranbrook's needs. Confidence in modern architecture on the estate was at a low ebb. Because Eliel Saarinen's work had assumed something of a sacred status, little of significance had been built for nearly 35 years. Rather than treating Cranbrook as an artifact to be preserved, Hoffman sought to revitalise the tradition of invention through the building arts which was so central to Saarinen's work.

Several years were spent establishing what Hoffman calls a 'self-conscious polemic' of bringing an awareness of building practices back into architecture by returning to the origins of craft and production. The first opportunity to test polemic through practice arose from the need for a new entrance to the estate. A road was planned giving access from Woodward Avenue, one of Detroit's major north-south corridors. Hoffman felt that the combined vehicular and pedestrian bridge over the River Rouge recommended by traffic engineers would be visually heavy-handed in such an idyllic natural setting. His alternative suggestion of a separate pedestrian bridge was adopted. Designed, fabricated and built by Hoffman and his students, the trellis bridge was completed in 1993. The bolted structure of laminated beams spanning 58 feet (17.7 m) is wrapped with non-structural diagonal lattice which is gradually being overgrown with vine. Alluding to the imagery of Laugier's primitive hut, the bridge-cum-arbour nestles discreetly among the overarching tree canopies along the banks of the river.

With the completion of this modest bridge, the Cranbrook community realised that new architectural interventions on the estate were indeed possible. Further projects ensued, all carried out by Hoffman in collaboration with students and graduates of the Academy. Like the bridge, the gatehouse for the new entrance, completed in 1994, is a carefully considered synthesis of landscape and built form. While the security booth alone would be dwarfed by the setting, the canopy creates an entrance at a larger scale appropriate both to Woodward Avenue and to the landscape. Although apparently symmetrical at first glance, the two wings of the canopy are subtly shaped to mirror the valley in which the road is situated, with convex landforms to the west and concave to the east. The canopy follows the curvature of the road, while the control booth is inflected by the flow of traffic. Expanding upon the tradition of reflected light at Cranbrook developed by Saarinen, the approach from Woodward is defined by a long, low curving wall of Cor-Ten embedded in the earth and illuminated by concealed light. Likewise, the filigree mesh of the canopy - translucent by day - becomes a virtual plane of captured light at night.

The bricks for the security booth were developed by Hoffman working with Soren Ubisch, a Norwegian brick master. Hoffman and Ubisch did not merely furnish the specifications for the brick; they made the random rakes for adding texture to the surface, used these tools on the production line, and applied the copper-impregnated slip and glaze formulated to match the canopy.

The copper wire canopy, specially woven at a workshop in Detroit, is supported on bead-blasted stainless steel bents springing from reinforced concrete piers. Because the convex and concave surfaces of the canopy combined with curvature in plan yield a complex building geometry, the computer proved to be an invaluable tool in developing both the design and the construction details. The mesh is secured to the bents by a series of stainless steel straps. By designing a flexible lashed connection, hundreds of unique configurations are able to be accommodated with only five helical strap types. Hoffman's studio made both the machine tools for fabrication and the straps themselves. However, these details are not merely pragmatic. The fabric and the sewn connections are conceptually rooted in Semper's notion of textiles as the origin of craft and one of the four essential elements of architecture. It is no accident that textiles and weaving - through the interests of Eliel Saarinen and his wife, Loja, who was a weaver - have been central to the community of artists at Cranbrook since its founding.

The community mailbox pavilion, built in 1996, arose in response to the cessation of postal services within the estate and the requirement to install cluster boxes at the new gatehouse. While Hoffman's other projects are inherently complex both formally and conceptually, this pavilion is an exercise in understatement intended simply to lend a modicum of civility to the act of picking up post. In deference to the adjacent gatehouse, the shelter is a modest box of lattice comprised of thin sections of cedar with minimally articulated fixings. The side faces of the wood are planed; the inner and outer faces remain rough sawn. The enclosure, which seems to hover above the ground, is visually light, yet succeeds in providing shelter and screening the mailboxes from view.

Working at an even more intimate scale, Hoffman has designed and fabricated furniture for the kindergarten of the primary school, drawing upon the technology of moulded plywood which was pioneered at Cranbrook by Charles Eames working with Eero Saarinen. Following on from the furniture, his most recent project for the primary school was completed this year. In response to the request to honour a benefactor, Hoffman proposed a storytelling pavilion sited on an island in the creek adjacent to the school building. Access to the island is by means of a bridge with undulating wave like balustrades; the teardrop plan of the pavilion is likewise shaped by the flow of the stream. In addition to being modelled by the physical attributes of the site, the form of the shelter is also rooted in historical narrative; battles allegedly fought here between Chief Pontiac and the settlers have generated a tapered section inspired by images of both an Indian cloak and a tepee.

A low concrete wall carries the galvanised steel sockets supporting the base of the hand-carved cedar posts and the brackets for the smooth oiled bench within. The tops of the posts are drawn inward by a galvanised tubular steel tension ring. Battens carrying shaggy, oversized cedar shakes are not horizontal but slightly sloped to remain perpendicular to the curved, tapered posts. A narrow slot between the concrete foundation wall and the lower edge of the cladding is designed to allow children, but not adults, to see out when seated inside. The viewing slot and the giant shakes consciously distort the scale of the pavilion to child-like proportions. The ground inside is sprinkled with cedar chips. The embracing form of the shelter, the smell of cedar, and the play of sunlight all provide rich stimulation for the imagination. Hoffman's next project, the ghostcatcher - a delicate pegged and dowelled skeleton of cedar standing in one of the lakes on the estate promises to be even more evocative, another folly in the romantic landscape tradition.

Interspersed with the bridges and pavilions, Hoffman has designed and fabricated a series of external lights and new signage for the estate. Bollards which emit tiny flame-like points of light line the new entrance road; the petal street light, inspired by Aalto, is placed in the context of nature; and the thistle light, derived from early industrial lamps, is used alongside Saarinen's robust brick buildings with their industrial steel sash windows. Hoffman's method of working - notably the decision about what to make in-house and what to subcontract - varies from project to project, as exemplified by the lights. The flared, spun aluminum bollards were made by a flagpole manufacturer for the US Navy, with drilling and assembly carried out by Hoffman's studio. The petal lamps were developed and fabricated entirely by the studio, including wind load testing by driving at speed on the motorway with a prototype lashed to the bed of a pick-up truck. The mother mould for the thistle lamps was developed in-house and the metal casting was carried out by others.

The signage system is simple and elegant, consisting of black anodised aluminum plates with bronze reflective vinyl lettering mounted on slender precast concrete tablets imprinted with the school emblem, the grey crane. At the new entrance, titanium letters in Futura typeface announce the estate. Close examination reveals a fine engraved pattern on the letters made by end milling with the bit applied to the surface at a slight oblique angle.

In 1996 Dan Hoffman stepped down as head of the architecture studio and established the Cranbrook Architecture Office, a consultancy serving the estate. This new practice - which consists of a drawing studio and an enormous workshop - is expanding upon the principles of design and fabrication developed so convincingly by Hoffman while teaching at the Academy. Architects, craftsmen, designers and scientists have been gathered together in a new working community of artists. Cranbrook's inspired patronage is to be applauded; the challenge is to carry the conceptual thinking and processes of fabrication - which have underpinned the projects to date, blurring the boundaries between architecture, industrial design, sculpture, infrastructure and landscape through into larger, more complex commissions.

Hoffman's thoughtful, innovative work has grown out of the ethos established by Saarinen and Booth, a combination of pragmatism about making and romanticism about the redemptive role of manual work in daily life. Although Cranbrook was founded in part as a reaction against industry, the romance with fabrication and manual labour is shared, giving rise to an unlikely alliance between William Morris and Henry Ford. Hoffman has added to this irony; in addition to equipping his workshop with an impressive array of used equipment from regional industry, he collaborates closely not only with artisans but with Detroit's 'culture of machinery', a wide range of technically sophisticated fabricators who supply the automotive industry.

For Hoffman, involvement with making rather than simply designing components to be fabricated by others - is essential. He speaks eloquently of 'the delirium of the menial task', and of the importance of both mental and physical intimacy with the work. Conceptually rich and exquisitely executed, these projects are comprised in equal parts of nostalgia for the hand-made and hard-nosed determination to use industry to advance craft. If the nature of building is indeed proof of culture, this approach offers a much-needed respite from the narrow exigencies of the market-place.