Shelli Jaeger, AIA, LEED AP®, NCARB and Kahn Senior Associate, has dedicated her professional career to solving complex challenges in build-form. Working at Albert Kahn Associates in Detroit Michigan since 2004, Jaeger served as a member of the architectural team on many exciting projects. Her latest effort led the design and detailing of Ford Motor Company’s three-story, 206,000 square foot Driving Dynamics Laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan. Faced with program challenges, compressed schedules, and harmonization of design dichotomies, Jaeger integrated state-of-the-art climatic acoustics testing chambers and dynamometers within a hoist-filled workshop for instrumenting vehicles for testing on the adjacent Dearborn Proving Grounds. Combining engineering office workspace, storage functions, and complex support systems in the building, Jaeger designed a facility that allows the client to improve connectivity through effortless collaboration.
Taking inspiration from the surrounding Ford campus, and integrating historical items salvaged from the decommissioned Wind Tunnel and Former Ford Airport Passenger Terminal that previously occupied the site, Jaeger focused on representing the progressive motion of the client from the past to the future as the automobile industry undergoes its next evolution. Always designing with the clients’ best interest in mind while never shying away from any challenge presented to her, Shelli is the perfect example of fearless and highly skilled architecture.