Biography
My name is Jonathan Koenemann, and I am an architecture student at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Throughout the fall of 2018, I have been focusing on how holes in patterns of architecture can be detrimental to businesses and even residents that live near them. As an outsider to Milwaukee, it has been easier to notice differences in the patterns of Milwaukee streets and patterns in my own hometown. With this project, I am hoping to bring light to these differences, and what I think could benefit these neighborhoods with broken patterns.
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Injustice in the Architecture
It is my theory that when an environment stops serving the needs of the people that live there, that it actually becomes a negative impact on the community. In the Sherman Park neighborhood on Milwaukee's northwest side, I think this idea can be best exemplified by looking at what was once Sherman Park's main street. Between 37th & 39th Street on Center Street, there is a collection of buildings on either side that could easily be described of as having a "main street grammar". But what is that?
Think of your typical main street USA kind of building. It has retail on the bottom with big windows to display products or lets you see inside. It has an upper floor with two or three windows facing the street, and is tightly packed between two buildings of this same style and build.
Now imagine these same buildings, except with gaping holes next to them; grass lots where buildings should be. Imagine that a quarter of them are boarded-up and in disrepair. Immediately the atmosphere of a normal street feels unstable. It isn't enticing businesses to start-up there and it is not sending a message to outsiders that it is a place which is worth investing in. And that is why I think it is an injustice. There will obviously always be places in communities where there are vacancies, but my point is that having the building boarded-up, or torn-down altogether is far worse, and contributes to a bigger environmental issue.
What I have done over the course of this fall semester, is find a key spot in this main street stretch, identify what historical factors contributed to the decline of this area and then find what factors make it different from other neighborhoods which are more put-together. As a next step, I got in touch with the community through a meeting that our studio set up, in collaboration with community activists. From this meeting, we all gained valuable insight about what they view as important and what they feel could improve the community. As an exercise in real community outreach, we built an installation for the neighborhood and observed how well it served its purpose, as we each developed our own final project. This final project was a culmination of both previous projects, and I focused more intensely on a single main street site.
What I eventually came up with was a small community building, designed to grow into a more fleshed-out space as years went by and more funds were acquired. This building would borrow the main street grammar, and would be built where there is currently a vacant lot. This would fill in a hole in the pattern of architecture that is hurting the flow of the space, but would also provide a place that the community could call their own, and invest in. As years went by I imagined this project taking over an adjacent abandoned building and therefore beginning a reclamation of this important stretch of buildings; the hope being that as they invest in one spot, the rest of the street would begin to heal and become a good starting block for the reinvestment of assets in the Sherman Park neighborhood.
Think of your typical main street USA kind of building. It has retail on the bottom with big windows to display products or lets you see inside. It has an upper floor with two or three windows facing the street, and is tightly packed between two buildings of this same style and build.
Now imagine these same buildings, except with gaping holes next to them; grass lots where buildings should be. Imagine that a quarter of them are boarded-up and in disrepair. Immediately the atmosphere of a normal street feels unstable. It isn't enticing businesses to start-up there and it is not sending a message to outsiders that it is a place which is worth investing in. And that is why I think it is an injustice. There will obviously always be places in communities where there are vacancies, but my point is that having the building boarded-up, or torn-down altogether is far worse, and contributes to a bigger environmental issue.
What I have done over the course of this fall semester, is find a key spot in this main street stretch, identify what historical factors contributed to the decline of this area and then find what factors make it different from other neighborhoods which are more put-together. As a next step, I got in touch with the community through a meeting that our studio set up, in collaboration with community activists. From this meeting, we all gained valuable insight about what they view as important and what they feel could improve the community. As an exercise in real community outreach, we built an installation for the neighborhood and observed how well it served its purpose, as we each developed our own final project. This final project was a culmination of both previous projects, and I focused more intensely on a single main street site.
What I eventually came up with was a small community building, designed to grow into a more fleshed-out space as years went by and more funds were acquired. This building would borrow the main street grammar, and would be built where there is currently a vacant lot. This would fill in a hole in the pattern of architecture that is hurting the flow of the space, but would also provide a place that the community could call their own, and invest in. As years went by I imagined this project taking over an adjacent abandoned building and therefore beginning a reclamation of this important stretch of buildings; the hope being that as they invest in one spot, the rest of the street would begin to heal and become a good starting block for the reinvestment of assets in the Sherman Park neighborhood.