When the BID District informed us of the Mitchell Street storefront holiday decorating competition, we wanted to participate with an installation on behalf of SARUP and the Mobile Design Box. We held a mini competition for students to offer design ideas and then crafted this abstract tree and setting based on Senior Architecture student, Conrad Lau's, submission. Happy Holidays!
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Our storefront at 615 W Historic Mitchell Street has been branded! We can't wait to activate the rest of the space for the community to see each time they go by.
Mobile Design Box Retrofit Research Project Report
Research Project: Activating Storefronts with a set of Mobile Furniture Purpose: SARUP’s Mobile Design Box project is a pop-up gallery that adapts Milwaukee’s existing empty storefronts in order to encourage innovative social, economic and cultural uses for these otherwise vacant spaces. Our current project is about finding ways to retrofit and activate vacant storefronts on Mitchell Street, Milwaukee. Our project has continued into Fall 2020, with renowned architect Tatiana Bilbao from Mexico to leading the SARUP Marcus Prize studio. Faculty and students from the Department of Architecture will work with other interested faculty, community members, institutions, and stakeholders to design and fabricate a series of mobile, interchangeable and durable furniture for empty storefronts along Mitchell Street. Question: The current project explores 1) how to engage local communities to co-create such spaces, and 2) how to craft a mobile furniture system that can be quickly erected to activate vacant storefronts. The uniqueness of this project is the flexibility of a mobile retrofit-system of furniture that can be moved from one location to another. With community input, this designed furniture will respond to diverse programming needs such as farmer's markets, art galleries, maker spaces, co-work sites, and community centers. By including community voices in the design process — through interviews, surveys and workshops, we hope to address local needs, aspirations, and knowledge. Methodology: Over the summer, SURF scholars have been engaging with residents, businesses, cultural organizations, and institutions to begin learning about the community’s needs. We have conducted eleven oral histories and condensed this feedback using the process of indexing and analyzing to operationalize commonalities. A mind map and ethnographic representation was drawn up for each interview, each possessing similarities and differences that are synthesized using common terms and the graphic representation of a mind map. Together, each analyzed mind map is used to determine terms that can be used in an overall taxonomy. The connections that emerge by analyzing multiple stakeholders provides a sense of Mitchell Street to those that have not visited themselves. The ethnographic drawings take the social phenomena of having a conversation and turn it into a 2D representation – the spatial notebook of a mind on paper. Each interview conducted provides a framework for creating an image of relationships. The ethnographic drawings will be used in second interview for invoking additional thoughts, the ability to eliminate the need to fill in the blanks of a remembered place and to put on display the community thinking through space. Beginning to understand the site for ourselves was also a priority. To do this we have started a soundscape along Historic Mitchell Street. Several senses work together to shape and inform our experience of space, by isolating certain senses we can help us to better understand the neighborhood. Therefore, the project consists of a series of ~10 minute recordings of Historic Mitchell Street, taken at different times of the day to facilitate a more widespread soundscape. The intent is not to find a single or fundamental 'sound' but to absorb the messiness unfiltered is search of the auditory discovery. There are currently 6 recordings of Historic Mitchell Street in this ongoing study. The second study of the site focused on existing elevations to breakdown architectural components that define storefronts. Categories and classifications allow the viewer to contextualize, compare, contrast, conceptualize and be in multiple places along Mitchell Street at once – thinking of their experiences of space and what elements make them feel certain emotions. The intent is to define the factors and conditions that will work together in forming an aesthetically pleasing, functioning, and welcoming storefront that fits in with the historical neighborhood. This ongoing study has identified 14 different store front typologies on Historic Mitchell Street Finally, a website that graphically displays the collected data has been composed: http://mobiledesignbox.org/ |
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Mobile Design Box Research Team Archives
August 2021
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