"Design for the 99%" comes to the HeartLand House!

In early September, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) adjunct assistant professor of architecture NJ Unaka brought his innovative "Design for the 99%" studio to the HeartLand House. Unaka's students are spending the academic semester working on projects of different scales at over 20 sites in and around Milwaukee. For the HeartLand House project, seven pairs of students have been charged to come up with renovation plans to help the home meet the Living Building Challenge ( https://ilbi.org/lbc ). The students hope to help the HeartLand House become a model of regenerative urban housing, one that produces the resources its inhabitants use on site (and turns such waste as food scraps, through composting, into new garden soil and even energy). Undergirding the work of all of Unaka's students is the belief that architecture should have a healing effect on the surroundings; it should not be destructive and/or intrusive. At the end of the semester, Unaka's students plan to present seven possible ways that the owners of the homes/structuures studied could make the buildings live up to such potential. We will have more on the exciting work of Unaka and his students as the semester progresses! Above, three of Unaka's students take measurements in the HeartLand House dining room....