Simulated Landscapes, Rachel Bruya Walker and Piper Vollmer

Rachel Bruya Walker and Piper Vollmer will discuss their artwork featured in the Architecture Gallery. Both artists create miniature environments with dramatically different visuals. Influenced by popular culture and her experience working in the highly political San Francisco architecture industry, Bruya Walker creates paper structures employing printmaking and photography. Vollmer’s 3D prints envision planned communities cultivated from religious utopian desires.

UWM – AUP 170

Carl Lounsbury, PhD, Lecturer at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia
Lounsbury’s lecture will consider how English colonists reworked their building practices in response to regional conditions in the American colonies, especially during the 18th century. He will consider how English technologies and building forms changed in response to new materials as well as contact with other colonists and indigenous peoples.

Co-sponsored with UWM Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Initiative and the Department of Art History, the Department of Landscape Architecture, and the Material Culture Program at UW-Madison. For more information, contact Assistant Professor Arijit Sen at sena@uwm.edu.

UW-Madison Elvehjem Building L140

This interdisciplinary symposium, which focuses on our engagement with the urban environment in its material and social contexts, will include speakers Swati Chattopadhyay, Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture at UC-Santa Barbara; Jennifer Cousineau, architectural historian with Parks Canada; Charlotte Fonrobert, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford; James Rojas, urban planner, artist, and founder of Latino Urban Forum in Los Angeles; Joseph Sciorra, Associate Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at Queens College’s John D. Calandra Italian American Institute; and Karen E. Till, Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech.

Co-sponsored with UWM Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Initiative, Center for Jewish Studies, Cultures & Communities Program, Peck School of the Arts, Departments of Anthropology and Geography, and the Urban Studies Program. The symposium organizers at UWM – Joe Austin (History), Arijit Sen (Architecture), Lisa Silverman (History), and coordinator Kate Kramer offer a special thank you to Simone Ferro (Dance). For more information, contact Assistant Professor Arijit Sen at sena@uwm.edu.

UWM – Curtin 175

Raquel Pinderhughes, Professor of Urban Studies, San Francisco State University

Workforce development programs are gearing up to prepare men and women from low-income communities for jobs and careers in the green economy. The training and preparation for these jobs and careers are seen as a ‘green pathway out of poverty’ strategy, aiming to leverage green economy opportunities as a sustainable solution for moving individuals from dependency to self-sufficiency. This presentation will focus on the role that green job training can play in preparing low-income youth and adults for the green economy both as workers and activists who come from the communities most impacted by environmental problems and injustices.

UWM – AUP 170

Clare Lyster, Principal, CLUAA, Chicago, and Assistant Professor of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago

Architects are increasingly turning to infrastructure as a site of research and design practice. The lecture contemplates architecture’s agency in the “infrastructural project”, though research on the disciplines fall out with the networks of Post-Fordist Space, what Manuel Castells calls “the space of flows”. This is presented through projects that identify new networks that challenge traditional notions of infrastructure; expose new architectural typologies in contemporary urban systems and establish new techniques for the representation of urban delivery networks.

UWM – AUP 170

Nabeel Hamdi, Emeritus Professor of Housing and Urban Development, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England

Nabeel Hamdi is one of the pioneers of participatory planning and his book Small Change has been highly influential in describing the role that informality plays in urban life. It sets out a way of thinking on cities that gives precedence to small-scale, incremental change over large-scale projects. He shows how the trickle-down effect advocated by conservatives everywhere does not produce the sort of large-scale changes that are predicted. Instead, the trickle-up effect of self-organized systems produce the biggest changes

Location:

UWM – AUP 170

The City of Milwaukee, the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee, and the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC) invite you to a very special panel discussion with the Chair for the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman.

The Role of the Creative Sector in Community and Economic Development moderated by Lt Governor Barbara Lawton.
Friday, September 17th
Panel Discussion 10:30-11:45 am
Milwaukee Art Museum, Lubar Auditorium

RSVP requested

Space limited, open to the public

FREE

Join the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee to get an update on the Creativity Works!project; to hear the perspective of the NEA on the importance of our creative sector; and to enjoy spirited discussion on how the creative sector contributes to our community’s livability and sustainability.

Chair Landesman is visiting Milwaukee to acknowledge and support our being awarded an NEA/Mayors Institute on City Design grant for Creativity Works! Milwaukee Regional Creative Economy Project. This project is a partnership between the City of Milwaukee, the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee, and the GMC. We have received one of only 21 grants awarded nationally, out of 200+ applicants.We look forward to seeing you on September 17.

Nighttime rendering of The Moderne

Following a long-awaited loan guarantee approval from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), construction will soon begin on The Moderne. The $55.2 million tower, which will stand at the southwest corner of Old World Third Street and Juneau Avenue, will contain 203 apartments, 14 condominiums, 204 structured parking spaces (181 apartments, 23 condos), and 7,230 square-feet of first-floor retail.

The City of Milwaukee had previously approved $9.3 million in loans to finance the project, but they were conditional on the approval of a loan guarantee by HUD. The guarantee was expected to be approved in February, but an overwhelming number of applications received by HUD forced an approval slowdown. To gain approval from the Common Council for a loan from the city, developer Rick Barrett (no relation to the Mayor) agreed to increased levels of Business Enterprises (EBE) program participation (25%) and Residential Preferred Preference (RPP) program participation (30%), and a first-lien personal guarantee of $4.35 million.

The majority of the project is being financed by a $41.4 million loan from  Capmark Financial Group Inc and the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust.

The Moderne does not fall within the footprint of the former Park East Freeway, but does fall within the tax-incremental financing district setup after freeway demolition (TID 48). Apartment rents are projected to be $1.94 per square foot in 2013. Average planned sale price for the condos is projected at $939,000. Leasing for the retail space is projected to bring in around $22 per square feet.

The Moderne, designed by Rinka Chung Architecture, tower will stand tall over its surroundings at 30-stories, dwarfing the nearby Bradley Center, Aloft Hotel, and Full-screen4th and Highland Garage. Eventually, the development may not stand alone as the remaining Milwaukee County-owned Park East parcels are developed.

Related Links:

• The Moderne website
• City of Milwaukee Legistar file pertaining to city loans
• Moderne high-rise loan guarantee wins final OK, work to begin soon (August 27th, 2010)
• Activity at The Moderne Site (Jan 4th, 2010)
• The Moderne Gains Common Council Approval for City Loans (Nov 3rd, 2009)
• The Moderne Project Held for Special Committee Meeting (Oct 27th, 2009)
• The Moderne Likely to Receive Public Financing (Sep 15th, 2009)
• Aerial Site Photo (with orange shipping containers still in place)

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September 1, 2010

Common Council Meeting

September 1, 2010 9:00 am

City Hall
200 East Wells St.
Common Council Chambers
Milwaukee, WI 53202[...]

Port of Milwaukee Redevelopment Plan

September 1, 2010 6:00 pm

Alderman Zielinski is holding a neighborhood meeting to discuss the Port of Milwaukee Redevelopment Plan on Wednesday, September 1st, 6 p.m. at the Port of Milwaukee, 2323 S. Lincoln Memorial Dr.The City of Milwaukee approved the boundary for the Port Redevelopment Plan in March 2009 and directed the Department of City Development to prepare a [...]