Urban Edge Award at UWM Recognizes National Voices on Housing and the American City

MILWAUKEE_The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning has announced that the 2025 Urban Edge Award will support a major symposium and publication on housing in the American city, one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Selected and curated by Assistant Professor Sam Schuermann, the symposium will gather leading architects, theorists and educators for a three-day public program centered on the single-family lot.

Titled “On housing: The single-family lot and the American city,” the symposium runs Oct. 22–24, at UW-Milwaukee and will include keynote lectures, panel discussions, student workshops and an exhibition in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning’s Jim Shields Gallery of Architecture and Urbanism sponsored by HGA.

Urban Edge Award recipients and symposium participants are Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann, Jennifer Bonner, Mitch McEwen, Laura Salazar-Altobelli and Pablo Sequero, Paul Andersen, Adrienne Brown, Jonathan Tate and Jesus Vassallo.

In spring 2026, students will engage in a seminar dedicated to editing a publication that documents and expands on the symposium. The resulting volume will feature transcribed conversations, essays and visual materials by symposium participants.

Milwaukee is an excellent place to question and reconsider the single-family typology for contemporary housing, according to Schuermann, who cites the city’s racialized history, labor history, scale, historic Rust-belt fabric and Midwestern ethos.

Through this initiative, the Urban Edge Award continues its mission to support timely architectural research that engages urgent questions in urban design.

About the Urban Edge Award
The Urban Edge Award was created in 2006. Modeled after the school’s Marcus Prize and supported by the Wisconsin Preservation Fund and the law firm of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, the Urban Edge Award recognizes excellence in urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change within the public realm. Funding for the Urban Edge Award totals $50,000. Learn more at: https://uwm.edu/architecture/urban-edge-award/

About UWM
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has an ambitious mission as both a top-tier research university and an access institution, striving to ensure that students have equitable opportunities to earn a college degree. UWM educates a diverse student body of more than 22,000 students from 88 countries. About 41% of its undergraduates are first-generation college students. Its unique and top-rated programs include Wisconsin’s only accredited schools of architecture and public health, the only North American school dedicated solely to freshwater sciences and a film program ranked among the top 50 in the world. It has the largest and top-rated online education program in Wisconsin. UW-Milwaukee partners with leading companies to conduct joint research, promote entrepreneurship, provide student internships and serve as an economic engine for southeastern Wisconsin. The Princeton Review named UW-Milwaukee a 2024 “Best Midwestern” university based on overall academic excellence and student reviews.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.