AIA Milwaukee

The AIA150 studio took place in the fall of 2006. Comprised of fifteen undergraduate and graduate architecture students, the studio was led by Professor Chris Cornelius. Students were divided into three teams representing the three home sites. Working with local politicians, suppliers, and manufacturers, the students developed design drawings for each neighborhood. The studio timeline was split into three segments,- an analysis project that culminated in a master planning proposal, an individual prototype proposal presented by each student, and a final group prototype representing a synthesis of the individual work. The end result of this studio was not only a buildable set of working drawings, but a model process for future affordable housing projects.

 >> LINK TO STUDIO WEB SITE

Having completed the analytical and individual design phases of the project, students reconvened as teams of five. They were asked to draw upon their individual designs and come up with a series of characteristics that represented their best ideas. In sketch and written form, these ideas became the seeds of the three final group prototypes. In this collaborative process, no single student project was chosen as the basis for a final design. Instead, all of the best ideas were combined and developed as a work owned by the entire team.

One student from each team was selected by the studio professor as the job captain. While the mark of that student’s individual work tended to be reflected more heavily in their team’s prototype, the job captains did not dominate the process. Students learned to trust each other’s judgment and as team members began to specialize in various areas of the project, the natural process of delegation ensured that everyone had a voice.

 >> DOWNLOAD TEAM FOM WORK

 >> DOWNLOAD TEAM RHSC WORK

 >> DOWNLOAD TEAM SKEAM WORK

After meeting initial resistance to the appearance of housing prototypes with regard to the historical character of the Merrill Park neighborhood, the AIA150 team went back to the drawing board to produce an alternative that would be more palatable to decision makers at the city level. While some of the modern character and detailing has admittedly been lost, the homes retain the intelligent layout, energy efficiency, and respect for the nature of modular construction. More importantly, these revisions keep alive the promise of filling empty urban lots with well-designed, affordable housing.

TWO NEW VARIATIONS

Two new variations of the Veil House elevations were produced with the intention of occupying adjacent lots. The railings were altered to follow a conventional vertical orientation. Window proportioning was also changed to fit better with the surrounding historical precedent, though the playfulness of the original prototype in terms of window positioning was maintained. A vibrant color palette resonates with the character of Victorian-era homes in the area- this is a marked departure from the relatively bland color schemes of more recent homes. Subtle differences between the size and proportion of windows on the adjacent homes demonstrates variation from one house to the next