'A Stroll Down Wells Street'
This team project looked at creating a walkable street through a busy part of downtown Milwaukee, Wells Street. The team project gave each team member a site for a building to design along the street. The site and building I detailed includes commercial uses on the ground floor with office space above, a pocket park along Wells Street, and an attached parking garage. The design details complete street principles as well as many urban design qualities like street trees and planter beds, pedestrian bollards, human-scale lighting, bike lanes and parking, and sidewalk layering. All images shown were created by myself with some design aspects added from two other team members.
This map highlights our teams intervention along Wells Street. While the buildings along the site we designed play into the public space of Wells Street, the streetscape, public space adjacent to it, and the spaces it connects is important in the urban design of the street.
Our team paid careful attention to the street section. The pedestrian interaction to the ground floor of each building changes the perception of the sidewalk. The existing street section in shown to illustrate the problems of the current street like the narrow sidewalks and auto-oriented spaces.
This drawing show our entire intervention. Our team saw the importance of connection Cathedral Square to City Hall as this connection is heavily utilized currently. The addition of the streetcar required additional attention to ensure E-W pedestrian connection was attractive and easy to navigate.
Each of our building designs activated the first floor. Understanding the current retail scene, our team proposed alternative activations like maker spaces, recreation facilities, and dining halls.
This drawing masses out the building I designed. As seen in the concept sketch, the parti of the project was rooted in creating an activated, architecturally interesting second floor space as well. This was done by providing meeting spaces which would be rented to the office users as well as members of the public to hold meetings. Being in the heart of downtown and with City Hall adjacent to the building, our team felt this was programmatically needed.
