ELECTIVE

Elective studios are a form of creative project-based research. Contemporary architectural issues are addressed through a wide range of sites, design processes, climates, representation methods, programs, and thematic interests. While some courses are recurring, many topics change every semester. Students can choose from these offerings and customize a particular curricular pathway through the architecture program.

Critics:
Sarah Aziz // Pleasure Palace
Tatiana Bilbao + Alex Timmer // From Private to Commons
Nikole Bouchard // Collective Imagination
Carolyn Esswein // Urban Design - Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods
Matt Jarosz // Adaptive Reuse
Brian Johnsen + Sebastian Schmaling // Clearly Opaque
Mark Keane // Department of Energy Zero Net Energy Housing
Lindsey Krug // Fellowship Studio
Kyle Talbott // Rural Futures
Filip Tejchman // Something Completely Different II
Alex Timmer // Heavy + Light - Precast Regenerative Architecture
Jim Wasley // Urban Edge
Trudy Watt // Vulnerability

Pleasure Palace
Critic: Sarah Aziz

The built environment is the foundation or playground for us to interact with and in but can have a negative impact on our own mental health along with dictating the conversations around the subject. Although architecture may not be the main cause of mental illnesses, there is still a lasting impact on how we interact within the spaces we design. With historical redlining creating a ripple effect in the urban fabric today, we can see the trends of demographics following the historical lead. The goal of Get Mental is to locate communities in Milwaukee that have the highest percentage of demographic overlap and narrow down sites that allow for mental health interventions that are hidden in plain sight. The interventions will take design cues from the urban fabric in order to create a destigmatized environment. Being hidden in plain sight allows for spaces to discuss mental health issues in public along with “normalizing” the conversations being held in traditional public spaces. Pushing back the stigma on talking about mental health. Destigmatizing the spaces in which we discuss our mental health will lead the way to bursting the negative stigma about getting help. Architecture can impact us negatively, but it ultimately has the potential to change the narrative.

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Student Presentation

From Private to Commons
Critics: Tatiana Bilbao + Alex Timmer

The “Commons” is a 13-person group project that addresses the fragmented and fading sense of community in Milwaukee’s Historic Mitchell Street Neighborhood. It creates a platform where knowledge can be passed down from one generation to the next, whether that be in the form of physical skills, cultural heritage, or community memory. A vacant storefront at 615 Mitchell Street serves as the hub for a greater network of interventions. The main feature is an immobile wall system that houses supplies and materials, but primarily serves as the home for five mobile kits that can be deployed throughout the space. Each kit addresses a specific need or interest of the community, including planting and seed-sharing; workshop space and tools for home improvement; cultural events and performance; and art making. A fifth “skeleton” kit can support any additional knowledge sharing activities that are relevant to the community. Being mobile, the kits can be taken out into the neighborhood to further expand the reach and visibility of the commons. Four exterior sites were chosen to host immobile installations which the kits can plug into as they do in 615 Mitchell Street. These locations range from vacant, grassy lots to underutilized pedestrian alleyways. Each plugin installation provides some combination of seating, planters, work surfaces, and a designated spot for the kit. When the kit is absent, community members can still use the plugin sites to gather and organize events. As such, the “Commons” can truly evolve with the needs of the community.

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Student Presentation

Collective Imagination
Critic: Nikole Bouchard

Confluence is an informal performance and exhibition space structured around the fluidity that is already embodied in the Walker’s Point neighborhood. Currently, the neighborhood is an amalgamation of restaurants, breweries, taprooms, shops, and gathering spaces used by the Latinx community, the LGBTQIA community, and various other community groups and organizations. A long-standing hub of Milwaukee’s gay community, Walker’s Point has a variety of nightclubs where dance is a primary focus. While modifying the existing structure to fit the needs of Confluence the debris generated are preserved for reuse in construction where possible. Where construction reuse is not possible the debris are taken to one of the waste reclamation sites around the city or categorized and used in a ‘materials library’ for the community of Confluence. Confluence provides a productive and creative outlet for the neighborhood. The introduction of performance spaces such as dance studios, art installation spaces, formal performance areas, galleries, music spaces, and other fluid performance types allows for community gathering while avoiding the generalized community center trope that is overused and under-accessed throughout the United States. Community centers within cities throughout the United States are typically spaces limited by gatekeeping practices that disallow for nontraditional activities. Confluence challenges the idea of what a community space can and should be. In allowing for a variety of activities based on community desires Confluence can better serve the community in ways that other community spaces have failed in the past.

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Student Presentation

Since the introduction of the refrigerated rail car during WWII, the meat packing industry boomed and became one of Wisconsin’s top industries in the 1950s. The expansion of the meat packing industry coupled with Milwaukee’s growing population at the time, demanded the need for large cold storage facilities throughout the city. One of Milwaukee’s oldest cold storage buildings is located at 322. E. Florida Street in Walker’s Point and was constructed in 1892. This eight story, cream city brick building was built in multiple stages and with salvaged materials, as evident by mismatched structural columns and beams throughout the building, the varying sized windows, and different materiality on the exterior and interior. To further explore the building’s current embodiment of the idea of ‘waste’ elements repurposed, Waste(d) Time extracts, alters, and exposes the individualized components of columns, beams, windows, floor joists, and interior and exterior materials, for a more community oriented program to emerge through larger spaces while still preserving the historically rich slice of time and material that the building possesses. The building keeps its roots in storage, but instead of storing food, it is a storage facility for the collection and creative misuse of objects that would otherwise be wasted as they sit idle and time passes. Storage facilities are a $40 billion dollar industry housing heap loads of people’s momentarily unwanted and unneeded items, and instead of those items simply sitting unused while they are ‘in storage,’ this concept proposes a reconfiguration of the typical individual storage units to become community expanses that facilitate the sharing of space and possessions by non-owners of the items to utilize throughout the reimagined spaces within the building and throughout the Walker’s Point neighborhood. The storage warehouse will become a purposeful place for the efficient and imaginative use (and misuse) of objects and space that are otherwise wasting in time.

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Student Presentation

Urban Design - Creating Vibrant Neighborhoods
Critic: Carolyn Esswein

Digital District was my team's proposal for redevelopment for Wells Street, with technology at the forefront of design. My focus area in the district was Projection Park where projection mapping is used to create a “Mid 21st Century Black Cat Alley” on Wells Street. With the Innovation Hub for Digital Artist that is adjacent to Projection Park, the digital artist can showcase their work instantly into the park. The Park also provides a beautiful ever changing back drop for the Hubs exhibition space where events can be held. With a plethora of eateries on the ground floor bring people to come to Wells Street and enjoy the show that the artist living there created. Bring community together is a progressive way and placing Wells Street on the map for Milwaukee tourism.

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Student Presentation

Welcome to the Vert District, I, along with my partner Burke Adams, proposed an iconic redevelopment on West Wells St. in Milwaukee. The site sits in the area between 6th St. and 11th St, and the neighborhood is nearby the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Milwaukee Library Central Branch, and the Milwaukee Public museum. The Vert district master plan proposes new mixed-use development to bring ample living space and commercial spaces to Westtown. The district promotes food availability through a full-size downtown grocery store supported by an ecology of urban farming on available rooftops. The proposal makes pedestrian connections in all cardinal directions by establishing pedestrian corridors that extends N. 8th St. to W. Kilbourn Ave. The detailed urban design proposal zooms into the west end of the Vert District focusing on the redesign of the Wells St. bridge that connects to Marquette University and Clas park. Starting from the west side on the bridge the program supports swings, bench seating, picnic areas, game boards, and an art walk. Class Park features a Café, seating area and educational gardens. The building south of class park supports a farmers’ market that operates throughout the week and can occupy streets with vendors on summer weekends. The neighborhood is designed using an iconic language that can be modularly repeated, and support various systems such as lighting, shade, seating and gardens. Finally, 801 W. Wells St. is the design for a mixed residential and commercial development that continues to support Vert District values.

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Student Presentation

Adaptive Reuse
Critic: Matt Jarosz

Welcome center for the FLW Unity Temple. The Unitarian congregation needs a welcome center to bring more revenue, fulfill programs during renovations, and supply additional underground parking. My design responds to the skinny site with a narrow glazed casing. The glazing acts as a case for the terraced concrete structure. The Unitarian belief addresses the relationship of man and nature, because of this I chose to implement a variety of indoor and outdoor foliage. Terra cotta planters, natural light corridors, and steel frame detailing are design implementations that create the explosion of the gem. Program (North - South): The admin on the first floor looks into the archives which are partially public and organized into a library forum. Archives on the first and second floor would hold readings and could be used for research exhibitions, because light only hits the upper floors directly; books and other fragile materials would be displayed appropriately. The entry and circulation space meet the entrance of the tamale. A long ramp is designed to give access to the third section of the welcome center. The south end is a large gathering hall with a gift shop and coffee studio. Spaces continue to elevate with the building mass while offices and additional spaces are in the basement. Pripad, the Gem out of the jewel box. Taking advantage of the long site allows for a skinny building; giving proximity to the temple. Materials relate to the temple exterior and the faith of the unitarians. Online Presentation: Web App https://arcg.is/0j4ynX

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Student Presentation

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple located in Oak Park, Illinois sits next to a vacant parking lot. This project proposed to design a visitor center with only underground connection to the temple. In addition to various programs: secondary chapel/lecture hall, coffee shop, gift shop, offices, meeting rooms, archival storage, and parking. My design proposes to ‘reflect’ the language of the temple by inverting technologies through contrasting enclosure systems. In accompany with the vertical rhythm across the façade, which flows into the skylight in the interior of the chapel. The design utilizes a single wood material to contrast and not distract from the temple, as the color and texture is soft against the concrete. The building is set back off of the street to add hierarchy respect along with framing the temple over a reflection pool. Visitors can experience further unique framed views off of the vertical garden balcony. Embedding nature throughout the design, an exposed lightwell near the rear of the building ties the underground temple entrance further to the visitor center through natural light and nature.

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Student Presentation

Clearly Opaque: A Carthusian Monastery in North Dakota
Critics: Brian Johnson + Sebastian Schmaling

In this studio we were tasked to design a Carthusian monastery or charter house that is remotely located on the grassy plains of a former cattle ranch in central North Dakota. The 900 year old Carthusian order is known for its asceticism and utter isolation from the outside world. These monks are known for their renouncement of material possessions and take a vow of silence. This stillness and restraint is what guided my design in creating a simple and rational monastery. My design sits wide and low in the landscape allowing for the buildings to be partially covered and exposed by the rolling hills. The plan has circulation spines that pinwheels off of a large central cloister and off of these spines are the programmatic masses. Another focus in this studio was using glass as our primary material throughout the project and we were tasked to think about different ways to use glass tectonically. In my project there are zones that are clear that allow views into the vast landscape but there are also opaque surfaces that hide the users from being viewed and from the views. These opaque surfaces can be seen as wall partitions instead of drywall and also can be seen as horizontal slats that vail some of the clear transparent glass.

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Student Presentation

The Clearly Opaque studio focused on the development of a Carthusian monastery utilizing modern glazing technology, in the sprawling plains of North Dakota. The large parcel of land was donated to the monks by a cattle farmer. The Carthusian monks are a 900 year old order that emphasizes a renouncement of all material possession as well as a strict vow of silence, only breaking this on certain occasions each month. The order is particularly private and prefers total isolation from the rest of the world, allowing only the occasional visitor. The father’s are main priests of the order, of which their needs a reserved by the lay brothers. My inspiration derives solely from the tenets of the order itself. I restricted myself to board form tilt up, birch wood and glass to create an aesthetic and rational monastery. The design itself diverges from minimalism to a classical Palladian plan, which created intensely rational spaces. The core spaces of the project are organized in a strict grid system that is penetrated by six vomitoriums to the outside world. These receptacles act as the transition points that separate the profane from the spiritual. The complex itself is sunken into the ground and works with the rolling plains to camouflage into the landscape, working with it to create a fortress against the regular world, a bastion to their faith. The only spaces that are visible to the outside world are in fact the church, chapel, and entrance spaces.

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Student Presentation

Department of Energy Zero Net Energy Housing
Critic: Mark Keane

Lindsey Heights is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Milwaukee, settled with Germans in the late 1800s. By the 1900s, Russian/Polish/Jewish immigrants have moved in with the Germans. During the 1920's a migration of African Americans creating a vibrant hub for Milwaukee with African American life and culture. Lindsey Heights is a neighborhood that has seen many renovations in its time. Much of the area disappeared and went vacant. People started revitalizing the community, with families and institutions taking initiatives to rehabilitate the community. Even with the assets at large, 40% of the residents live in poverty in Lindsey Heights. Lindsay Heights is one of Milwaukee's pilot neighborhoods chosen by the Zilber Family Foundation, which has dedicated $50 million to the initiative. The Neo-Net Zero home located in the Josey Heights neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a catalyst for an expansive model for Net-Zero Energy homes. 10,000 homes in 10 years. This style hearkens back to the days of knowing exactly who your neighbors are, having a welcoming front door. Displaying comfort, beauty, and timelessness as you venture through the home. This 1500 Square Foot home has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths as well as a 2-stall garage. The home is oriented to take advantage of solar gain on the southern façade, having majority of the windows on the south façade and a PV solar array on the garage. The home is equipped with ENERGY STAR rated appliances and EPA Watersense approved fixtures to minimize to excess water usage.

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Fellowship Studio
Critic: Lindsey Krug

The Voting House seeks to architecturally respond to the modern social issue of voter turnout. In the November 2016 election, Milwaukee had 182 polling locations open. In the 2020 primary election, the city opened just 5 polling locations. Data suggests this lack of polling locations disproportionately affected Black Voters in the city and surely depressed voter turnout for the city. The Voting House rigorously canvasses the city at a spacing distance of 2 miles, ensuring a maximum one-mile travel distance to complete our given right to vote. The Voting House seeks to standardize our right to vote. Polling places have few regulations and take many different forms throughout the city; school gymnasiums, libraries, historic structures, etc. The architecture that surrounds the voter should be standard as the process seeks a true democratic form. The Voting House is comprised of three parts, the Skin, the Scaffolding, and the Voting Program. The Skin of the folly protects the function, shielding the process when needed but allowing views to the process as well. The Scaffolding supports the democratic act; without it, the folly and democracy crumble. The Voting Process takes the form of a linear bar, protected yet transparent in nature. While The Voting House has a prototype, the folly must be whimsical in its form as it must stay where it lands. Therefore, the folly takes the shape of the community; a basketball court will be utilized in some neighborhoods while a library may support others. The Act of voting is not longer a rare occurrence, it becomes part of the community, a piece of architecture people see day after day.

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Student Presentation

Rural Futures
Critic: Kyle Talbott

The Landing is a hands-on art studio and folk school with a workshop and rentable studio space. This is intended to service both permanent residents of Lake Geneva as well as vacationers as a creative outlet. The long-span trusses and large column bays make the space easily adaptable for many uses. The interior is left raw with exposed structure, visible mechanical and electrical, and polished concrete floors to aid in the adaptability as well as speak to the honest simplicity of rural Wisconsin. Botanically inspired ornamentation is used sparingly in carved out areas and in some places creates a dappled light effect reminiscent of tree canopies. The two most important things my project contributes to the walkability network is a landmark corner and pockets of space for pedestrians. Being at the far western end of the lakefront district my project marks this end with an ornamented, rising roof peak. This creates a landmark while trying to respect the transition from downtown to residential. The building form creates two large-scale pockets of public space: one under the canopy on the eastern side, and one in the courtyard on the north side. The large-scale pockets are broken down into smaller scale pockets that try to layer the transition from outside to inside and create plenty of spaces to sit and see the activity happening inside.

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Student Presentation

Something Completely Different II
Critic: Filip Tejchman

Subalpine Phoenix focuses on architecture’s role in the climate crisis and developing new ways of thinking about complex problems in hopes of discovering new solutions. Our task was to choose an ecosystem to research, identify current crises, and implement novel design strategies to help combat the chosen crisis. The subalpine ecosystem experiences wildfires; this proposal manipulates the land to facilitate ecological prosperity during and after such an event. To promote a thriving ecosystem, man-made modules are repeated strategically around the 25 acre area to create a landscape that caters to the needs of organisms. These modules also protect and inhibit the spread of fire. The introduction of infrastructure such as fog harvesters, lightning rods, smoke pipes, and seed distributers, to the ecosystem furthers resilience for post fire growth. The exploration of new methods of representation and simulation influenced the design processes, which take advantage of the ever-growing industry of video games. The Subalpine Phoenix is modeled using Unreal Engine and presented in an interactive format in which viewers can virtually walk around the landscape. Visit the link below to view a video walkthrough of Subalpine Phoenix: https://youtu.be/leAoY6_jwvM

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Student Presentation

Monticule Park is a man made 25-acre park that is design to serve as an ecosystem for animals that I selected. My goal with the project was to design a few different types of modules to provide for the animals that would live in the area. Doing research on the animals to find the things that they prefer to have for food and shelter and providing those things. Now not stopping at providing the things you can normally find in nature for the animals but also adding in a few different types of manmade objects or structures to provide extra benefits for the animals. I chose to add a sort of apartment style boxes underground for the snowshoe hares to inhabit and the other animals that are burrowers. I also added a self-refilling watering system so the animals will always have water in the watering holes. Last I added an embankment to serve as a bridge for animals to cross to avoid going onto the ground to travel from module to module. My goal with the design was to also have plenty of opportunities for the circle of life to play a role in the animals life and also help control the population of the animals and not have one animal species become overpopulated and end up taking over the land.

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Heavy + Light - Precast Regenerative Architecture
Critic: Alex Timmer

We have been part of the Heavy + Light Spancrete sponsored studio this past semester. The goal for the semester was to create a modular precast system to handle the elements and adapt to any program. Geometry was extracted from our charrettes that could be feasible precast elements. The repeatability of our pattern meant for repeatability of molds and left us only needing 3 unique precast Spancrete pieces to create the entire aggregation. We discovered the elegance of our skylights created by seams in our system that would wash up and down the wall through the day. Light was not the only element that our system could handle. The entire roof is also a bioswale that filters rainwater to flow right back into the environment through a pipe that runs the length of the building. Now that we had a system that could adapt to the elements and to a variety of programs, it was time for the real deal. A multiuse building that consisted of a community center, commercial space, offices, and a kayak launch. We have canopied all of our entrances with an aluminum cladding on space frames for shade and rain protection. The skin allows us to hide our insulation, reflect heat, and define the exterior walls both in shape and materiality change. Given all these design decisions we successfully created a system that is capable of producing complex spaces by an uncomplicated means as well producing special grains with a sculptural approach to the system that formed them.

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Student Presentation

Variance is a project that is constructed with a precast concrete system. The system is capable of creating layered spaces through the manipulation of floor levels. Single T floor plates and a modification of those floor plates that support green roof infrastructure act as a bioswale. The columns come together to create a pocket for the floor plates to sit in. Kickers are located at the center of the floor plates to support the columns. Stairs and elevator shafts help with transferring the load, creating lateral bracing. The floor plates are made with the same mold as the bioswale, just with an insert to create the v like bioswale shape. Long line production and the use of stoppers allows for the creation of different lengths. Working with Spancrete we worked out the details of how our system components would come together and analyzed where columns would be needed to support the floor plates and bioswales. Using the precast system, we were able to create different floor heights that produced the layered spaces.

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Student Presentation

Urban Edge
Critic: Jim Wasley

Working towards an integrative approach to healing, this project employs biophilic design at the urban scale and makes grand gestures to daylight water and restore nature in the Children’s Hospital sector of the Milwaukee Medical College campus. With innumerable benefits and promising precedent studies to back it, biophilic design in this project aims to be a proving ground to further demonstrate how beneficial it can be for patient recovery as well as the connectivity of the campus to the larger natural systems unique to Milwaukee. Calming, functional, and restorative, this project will draw people from all over the world for medical research, quality care, and architectural studies.

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Ground level serving as a social lounge to the entire campus acting as a “mini student union” having a variety of spaces for students from all departments to interact. Different seating options and even student reserved conference rooms for discussions. A huge auditorium for any presentations which can be used by all departments on campus. All these activities are placed on the ground level making the labs secure at higher levels. The entrance has double height spaces allowing a visual access at multiple levels & even moments like having the balconies which are accessed from podium levels looking into the commons. The green roof provides a seamless connection making it a plaza to celebrate and hold events. This open space is much needed in the campus. The cut out in roof provide natural daylight to deep spaces and act as landscape on top. There are flexible labs, classrooms, with clear visual access to egress on the sides at the upper levels. The labs are oriented towards north to have less solar gain as they need controlled environments. The classrooms use the natural daylight. the walls in between are not permanent and can be used for flexibility in increasing or dividing the spaces. The upper levels have staff rooms which have a mezzanine level as they do not require at 20 feet high ceiling similar to labs. Some rooms were removed to create an open courtyard feel making them a shared conference room for staff members. The rooms open up at a decked terrace level to promote social spaces & conversations amongst staff. Perfect places to barbeque & have lunches. The penthouse is at the highest level placed directly above the labs from service point of view. The plaza level on north connecting seamless green. Double height social space on south with shaded walkway. Also, the mezzanine at the top level with social spaces on terrace.

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Student Presentation

Vulnerability
Critic: Trudy Watt

This studio asked us to look at the Milwaukee Catholic Home, a senior assisted living facility and nursing home. We were asked to look at how their two existing buildings may need to adapt in light of a rapidly changing environment. We researched the industry, the neighborhood, how the current buildings function, and the shifting desires of potential residents. This studio was focused on making spaces that encourage people not just to live, but to thrive. This concept colored all of our decisions. Our research indicated the key factors that make seniors vulnerable are loneliness, boredom, and helplessness. Covid-19 severely stressed all senior facilities, so we wanted to address this as well. The upcoming generation of seniors does not plan to age the way their parents may have so we had to consider their preferences, such as village-type settings and cohousing. Specific requests from the residents and staff included a swimming pool, group exercise area, more outdoor “green,” active spaces, and a way to make the two buildings feel more closely related. The following images will show our proposal for “Boomer Village,” a senior village integrated into the surrounding community by adding ground floor amenities. A cohousing concept improves the internal community of residents while added green spaces offer more activated zones. This proposal improves the physical and mental health of residents and improves its attractiveness to future residents, while integrating more closely into the surrounding neighborhood community.