Delight: the redecoration of an ordinary American house by a collaboration of architect and artist is a wild manifesto for the rejuvenation of decayed property in imploding industrial cities.

Architect Michael Poris seized the opportunity of the imminent demolition of his house in Birmingham, Michigan to collaborate with artist Tyree Guyton to transform the 1940s aluminium-clad Cape Cod style bungalow into an ephemeral but memorable artwork jolly, colourful and idiosyncratic. Guyton, who has previously worked to transform Detroit's dreadful decay by painting abandoned houses into gaily coloured three-dimensional sculptures, used his favourite polka dots, and three-dimensional waste items such as old shoes, and toys. He enlisted the help of students schoolchildren neighbours and other local artists to make what Poris called a transition between the old house and what he has designed for the site -- a somewhat ominously termed 'Arts-and-Crafts style home'.

Bits of the house have been saved for exhibition, and Possibly they will help raise funds by auction for Poris and Guyton's Heidelberg project which is heroically intended to transform Detroit's devastated downtown with imagination, colour and flair. O.S.