Building along the borders Finding themselves in backyards
UWM architecture students study city-limit neighborhoods
In September, 130 architecture students at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee began their semester with a monumental task: to bike, walk or slowly drive the 110-mile border of the City of Milwaukee.
Their goal was to learn about the conditions at the city’s edges, about the buildings, public spaces and neighborhoods that existed there, as well as the people who live and work there.
After a week of trekking, the students were given an assignment: Build activity stations at assigned locations on the city’s edges, allowing the public — at safe social distances — to learn more about these spaces in their communities.
The students were put into 34 groups, and each assigned a spot on the city’s border. Some created stations where people can sit and appreciate nature, others a place to confront issues like redlining or noise pollution.
Members of the public can travel to the stations from 1 to 5:30 p.m. Monday to experience the projects and learn more about the history behind — and challenges along — the city’s border.
Sarah Aziz, the innovation and design fellow in UWM’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning, designed the “Walk the Line” curriculum. She said she wanted her students to think about how people shape the world around them, and to identify the differences and similarities between the communities on each side of the city line.
As the students walked, Aziz said, they started to home in on tiny details. They talked about how the drain pipes on each house were oriented. How uniformly the lawns were mowed. Who had a Trump sign and who a Biden sign. Which buildings looked ornate from the street but were actually built with cheap materials.
“Central to everything is the realization that architecture is something that affects the lives of so many people in ways that we cannot comprehend,” Aziz said. “So, making sure that if we do anything, we understand what it is that we’re designing and the potential ramifications that it can have.”
Key to that understanding was learning about the neighborhoods that the students would be building in: whether there were ample or sparse resources for development, how people were working to better their neighborhoods and how assumptions about an area can be wrong.
Aziz and her students watched a drug deal take place in a picturesque, serene neighborhood. They walked past beautiful community gardens that were marked as empty lots on their maps.
And they got to know the imaginary line that divides people and places, a city line that zips and zags and loops along, shaped to be what it is today by years of population booms and political feuds between local governments and landowners.
On the edge of Milwaukee and Greenfield, they walked for miles only to end up back where they started, as Milwaukee’s city line looped around pockets of land that were technically in the suburbs. The lines cut through neighborhoods, seemingly arbitrarily.
At one point, sophomore Jacob Rohan and his group found themselves in someone’s backyard. They struck up a conversation with the homeowner, explaining that they were looking for the city line.
“Oh yeah, you want to pay higher taxes? Go to that guy’s house,” the homeowner told Rohan.
Rohan’s group was assigned to build something on the edge of Milwaukee and Brown Deer, and their project is aimed at drawing attention to the noise pollution around a busy commercial center.
The group designed a large box that passersby can enter to experience what it’s like to sit in silence. The structure will be in a small green space near the Aldi at 6720 W. Brown Deer Road. Visitors will be provided with things to make noise — pots, pans, other metals — to experience for themselves what it is like to disrupt the quiet.
Rohan said conversations with residents helped the students realize that while they focused on noise pollution, light pollution was a greater concern. They adjusted their design as a result.
“This project has really helped me to understand how important it is to know who you’re building for, how that affects people, where it is and what conditions the people are living in in those areas,” Rohan said.
‘A study abroad at home’
Mo Zell, chair of the architecture department, said students would normally be encouraged to study and tour architecture abroad, but this year’s project became “a study abroad at home.”
Zell ran the “Walk the Line” project for graduate-level students who are transitioning into a career in architecture.
Three of her students, Carly Farrell, Michael Major and August Behrens, have bachelor’s degrees in history, geography and mechanical engineering, respectively. The group was assigned a site on the city’s south side, on the Kinnickinnic
River near the dividing lines between Milwaukee, West Milwaukee and West Allis.
Walking through the neighborhoods, which were built there after World War II, the students wandered down to the riverbank and felt transported into a different, more natural world.
“(The neighborhood) is straight out of post-war America, like the ’50s. The houses don’t look like they’ve changed much and it does seem like there is a concerted effort to kind of contain the natural space,” Farrell said.
They decided to install two benches: one on each side of the river, for people to sit on and appreciate the waterway. Carved into the benches are old maps, illustrating what the area looked like throughout history.
“Our message really is bringing the people that are in these cookie-cutter neighborhoods into the natural space that we found so alluring,” she said.
Visit www.moochseries.com/walk -the-line for a map of the students’ sites and information on how you can visit.