MILWAUKEE, WI

This commissioned project is part of a City of Milwaukee Business Improvement District street beautification effort. With a largely Hispanic community, the project offers a subject matter immediately tangible to the community, and a responding form emerges as a beacon of pride, a marker, along a burgeoning commercial corridor.

The Park-strip Pavilion will be one of many improvements along Cesar E. Chavez Drive in Milwaukee on the city’s south side. In addition to other street-scape improvements, the Park-strip Pavilion will serve the community as an informal area to convene for events and community gardening. The design approach taken here aspires to assume the bold vibrancy of the community’s cultural backgrounds, primarily Latino. This is accentuated by integrating the word “UNIDOS” into the architectonic language. “UNIDOS” communicates a message the we are in this ‘together’, no matter our backgrounds.

While aspiring towards design as event and spectacle, innovations of form and materiality hinge largely on digital design and fabrication techniques. This allows the proposal to reach the intended design goals while maintaining sensitivity to the project’s modest budget. While the BID intended to pursue construction of this project, leadership and board priorities shifted to other efforts.