I will be posting to this weblog throughout the year-long design period to document my design process, ideas and more. Check back often to see how I'm doing, and add comments to the entries if you'd like.
Below is the presentation I gave to my class on Monday, November 18. I have settled on a project name: the Milwaukee Innovation Center. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the image.
Below are the slide thumbnails of the presentation, or you can view the PDF if you prefer »
I have been struggling to reform my thesis and project name to more accuratly reflect my fusion of education, design and production. I have moved away from the “Fabric” to a broader focus on industry and innovation.
Establishing a place where creative people can gather and learn, or start a business, will be of great value to Milwaukee’s economy. Producing highly innovative design and production within the city will foster the creation of many related business, encourage job growth, and reverse the exodus of jobs to business parks in the suburbs or overseas. Milwaukee has the potential to be the leader in innovative industrial design and production. The best way to bring notoriety and investment to Milwaukee’s renewed innovative spirit in the 21st century is to build a signature facility to draw international attention. The exemplar project ideally will be located in a formerly prosperous, but presently distressed part of the city combining design and production under one roof to serve as a combined school and business incubator; an icon and a catalyst for future growth.
Work this week consisted of making revisions to my thesis statement and abstract, doing some site analysis and finding precedents. I also selected the Industrial Design School and Workshop as my program. I dismissed the School of Freshwater Sciences for three main reasons: a) the School of Freshwater Sciences shouldn’t abandon their existing infrastructure, b) given the political and personal interest in the project, I feel it is going to be distracting from my product as I am not interested in integrating polical manuevering, citizen concerns, and the universities budget into my project and c) the industrial design school works better with my manufacturing and industrial focus, and is more of a fitting tribute to the Solvay site.
Milwaukee is in desperate need of and economic stimulus. Since the 1960s, Milwaukee has seen a steady decline in its manufacturing base and the replacements in the service industry has not earned much respect. Milwaukee’s global images was, and now is, manufacturing. We build motorcycles at Harley-Davidson, motors at Briggs and Stratton, and we brew beer at Miller. Creating highly innovative technologies in the city will encourage job growth and reverse the exodus to business parks in the suburbs. Milwaukee has the potential to be a leader in innovative industrial design and production. The best way to bring notoriety and investment to Milwaukee’s renewed innovative spirit in the 21st century is to build a signature educational and manufacturing facility to draw international attention. The exemplar project ideally will be located in a formerly prosperous, but presently distressed part of the city combining design and production under one roof to serve as an icon and a catalyst for future growth.
What is a city? On the physical level it is a collection of buildings, roads and infrastructure allowing people, on the human level, to live, work and play within this physical context. Each city is unique with regard to size, quality, features, landmarks, history and more. Milwaukee is a city rooted in its industrial past and currently struggling to adapt to the post-industrial present. By most metrics, Milwaukee is struggling. Auto manufacturing jobs have left for foreign countries, not to return. Steel and metal fabrication has declined. Breweries have
consolidated or shut down with Miller as the exception, who now brews most of the legacy beers. The result is a number of missing teeth in the city landscape. These vacant and dilapidated lots disrupt the city, punching holes in the urban fabric. My goal for my thesis is to design a project which repairs this fabric with a new program emphasizing integrated project delivery by streamlining design and production into a single facility to begin to restore Milwaukee image of education, innovation and manufacturing dominance.
Below are the slide thumbnails of the presentation, or you can view the PDF here if you prefer »
