The recent renovation of the UWM Union has been recognized with major architecture awards.
Professor Jim Shields, FAIA, led the design team at HGA Architects & Engineers. The award-winning design clarifies previously confusing wayfinding, brings daylight into previously windowless areas, and adds fresh finishes and bright furnishings into the Brutalist concrete building without erasing the original architecture.
The American Institute of Architects Wisconsin Chapter awarded the project with an Honor Award for design excellence at a September award ceremony held at the Grain Exchange Building in downtown Milwaukee.
A distinguished jury from outside of Wisconsin selected the winners. Members of the 2024 Design Awards jury included nationally and internationally recognized architects Margaret Cavenagh, AIA, of Studio Gang in Chicago; Paul Lewis, FAIA, of LTL Architects in New York City; and Corey Squire, AIA, of Bora Architecture & Interior in Portland, Oregon.
“The design elegantly balances the building’s more brutalist concrete structure with tactical and impactful transformations,” said Juror Paul Lewis. “This dialogue selectively improves upon the existing building, without making its past disappear. But by far the most consequential aspect of this project was not tearing down the massive building, but reusing it and revitalizing it, which is economically as well as ecologically inventive.”
Three projects including the UWM Union were awarded the Honor Award for overall design excellence, which is the highest honor given.
Earlier this year, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson presented 20 winning projects in the 27th Annual Mayor’s Design Awards. One of the top awards went to the UWM Union renovation.
The renovation’s design was recognized as “Urbanism Redefined,” a category defined by designs that having made extraordinary contributions to the city’s built environment by constructing or restoring places that repair, restore, or enhance the urban fabric, expand opportunities for education or employment, and facilitate social connections.
The renovation was also chosen as a major award winner in the annual Daily Reporter Top Projects Awards Program.
The union, which was built in phases in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, was showing its age in recent years. As a result, an upgrade was approved in the 2018-2019 state budget, and work started in July 2021.
