Receiving Recognition

Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning receive top accolades locally and nationally.

Canvas Cocoon
Nikole Bouchard is 2015 Sukkahville finalist

Assistant Professor Nikole Bouchard, Milo Bonacci, and Julien Leyssene were one of eight international design teams whose competition entries were showcased at Sukkahville 2015, the fifth annual competition conducted by the Kehilla Residential Programme in Toronto. The team was one of 81 submissions that were asked to reimagine the traditional Sukkah, a temporary structure that is built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot in commemoration of the 40 years that Jews spent wandering the desert.

Their project, the Canvas Cocoon, “is a temporary, reusable structure that enables users to relax, rest and recreate during (and after!) the festival of Sukkot.

“The space is constructed with three primary materials: wood, cotton canvas and jute. Large sheets of canvas are suspended from the wooden structure. These canvas sheets are fastened to the jute cables at the top of the structure to create a series of flexible walls. The arrangement of the canvas sheets creates a cloak that provides a sense of security and comfort for the user(s), as if being wrapped in a warm blanket. An oculus provides stunning views of the sky above.” Following Sukkot, the Canvas Cocoon was disassembled and the materials brought back to Milwaukee where they will be used by local groups to create art.

The Canvas Cocoon provided a special space for users during Sukkot and an opportunity for city-wide engagement and artistic expression following the Festival.

HOME GR/OWN Initiative Awarded Design Honor
SXSW Eco conference in Austin

Carolyn Esswein, CDS/SARUP and Tim McCollow, HOME GR/OWN Program Manager City of Milwaukee, pitched their Partners for Places project as a finalist at the SXSW Eco Conference in Austin. Their project was selected as the winner in the Place by Design “Urban Strategy” category. Other finalists included Seattle, Austin, Chicago, and L.A.

Mayor Tom Barrett’s HOME GR/OWN initiative is transforming vacant lots into more than 20 pocket parks and orchards. Community Design Solutions (CDS) staff developed the planning and design process, conducted workshops with neighborhood residents to gather priorities for each site, developed the park and orchard site plans and renderings and worked with City staff regarding materials and final design details. The design team also included Walnut Way Conservation Corporation, Energy Exchange, and dozens of community residents who participated in design workshops. The projects are being built by non-profit landscape companies using workers from the neighborhoods.

“The community partnerships fostered to develop all of HOME GR/OWN’s new vacant lot transformations are helping to create a more sustainable city,” Mayor Barrett said. “I am proud of our HOME GR/OWN program and the Partners for Places team for receiving this prestigious award and for growing opportunities in Milwaukee neighborhoods.”

SXSW Eco is an annual conference held in Austin, Texas, that creates a space for business leaders, investors, innovators and designers to advance solutions that drive economic, environmental and social change.

Burnham Prize Award
Image submitted by Assistant Professor Kyle Reynolds and Jeff Mikolajewski for the project
Empty Kingdoms

Assistant Professor Kyle Reynolds and Jeff Mikolajewski, who together form Is-Office, received a 2015 Burnham Prize Award for the project Empty Kingdoms.

Inspired by the title of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (The State of the Art of Architecture) this year’s Burnham Prize challenged participants to develop a single image that represents a strong point of view that explores the question: What is the State of the Art of Architecture today?

“We are living in a golden age of architectural projects —there are the archivists, the hair guy, the pattern people, the “robots should be tools” people, the “robots should be buildings” people, the grasshopper scripters, the atmospherics, the collage makers, the techno-utopians, the techno-dystopians, the technophiles, the trace people, the new tectonics people, the old tectonics people, the hanging string people, the gooey bubble people, the entrepreneurial talkers who read Fast Company, the techno-fabulists who read Wired, the TED talkers, the people who want trees to be buildings, the surface people, the scary digital people, the Mario digital people, the prefab people, the digifab people, the sustainable people, the socially aware citizens, the Vimeo directors, the Kickstarters, the cross-programmers, the infrastructure crowd, and so on, and so forth.

Like a medieval continent, the discipline of architecture has been divided and subdivided into an ever-expanding number of fiefdoms, each guarded by a greedy aristocrat committed to his role as lord of the land. These landed gentry, who hold property for future gains such as tenure, a curatorial position, or a show at the upcoming biennale, now dominate the discipline. In this world, there are virtually no buildings and there is nothing to protect, just miles and miles of rhetorical fortifications enclosing fallow land and the odd pavilion or installation.

“The discipline needs a new means to coalesce, by holding a mirror onto itself and abandoning old models of fracture and bifurcation. Instead, these little projects should nest together to form the next big thing.” – Kyle Reynolds and Jeff Mikolajewski.

AIA Wisconsin 2016 Honor Awards
Johnsen Schmaling, the practice headed by Professors-in-Practice Brian Johnsen and
Sebastian Schmaling, received two out of four 2016 Honor Awards for overall architectural design excellence from the AIA Wisconsin for their projects Linear Cabin (a small family retreat in St. Germain) and Redux House (a reinvention of a suburban ranch home in Whitefish Bay), and a Merit Award for excellence in particular aspects of architectural design for Mountain House (a new modern home nestled into the surrounding landscape at Big Sky, Montana).
Honorable Mention for Virtual Memorial
Associate Professor Mo Zell, Adjunct Professor Marc Roehrle and Cultural Historian Phil Troutman were semi-finalists in the “Memorials for the Future” competition sponsored by the Van Alen Institute, The National Park Service, and the National Capital Planning Commission. Their submission, Virtual Memorial, is an app that allows users to engage with the city. They can download different curated walks that alert the user via GPS of significant events that had occurred at that specific site as they stroll through the city. These events become visceral because they are place specific. The user is connected to the event/place transcended through time.
Excellence, Integrity and Innovation
Carolyn Esswein receives 2015 WCREW Spire Award

CDS Director and Urban Planning faculty member Carolyn Esswein was recently recognized with the prestigious WCREW Spire Award. This award recognizes “visible or unsung heroes, who through her everyday actions consistently demonstrate excellence, integrity and innovation while serving as thought leaders, change agents and champions of diversity within the community.” The mission of the CREW Network is to “influence the success of the commercial real estate industry by advancing the achievements of women.”

  • Assistant Professor Nikole Bouchard, Milo Bonacci, and Julien Leyssene were one of eight international design teams whose competition entries were showcased at Sukkahville 2015