Architectural firms exhibit project designs

Tear it down or fix it up? Perhaps that elderly structure needs a little of both strategies; whatever you decide, the chances are excellent that you will enlist the services of an architect.

While the University of Wisconsin–Madison doesn’t have a school or department of architecture, students across a variety of disciplines study the design principles of space configuration.

The Design Gallery at the university’s School of Human Ecology invited four award-winning Wisconsin architectural firms to focus on the preservation and adaptive re-use of older buildings. Each firm contributed image and text presentation boards for the exhibition. The main projects are:

• Wisconsin State Capitol restoration, Kahler Slater Architects, Milwaukee and Madison.
• Restoration of Ten Chimneys, the Alfred Lunt-Lynne Fontanne home in Genesee Depot, and the property’s new education center, Engberg Anderson Design Partnership, Milwaukee.
• UW Law School addition, BWZ Architects, Middleton.
• Transformation of an abandoned power plant into the offices and studios of The Kubala Washatko Architects, Cedarburg.

Engberg Anderson Design Partnership and BWZ Architects are scheduled to make presentations about their projects at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 18.

In addition, each firm also included presentation boards for up to three other projects, making a total of 14 projects represented in the exhibition.

David Wells, curator of the Design Gallery, says that connecting the past and future through architectural structure graphically underscores both the difficulties and rewards of preserving and re-using older buildings.

“Many older buildings are worth keeping for many different reasons. In the first place, adaptive re-use is more sustainable than demolition and new construction,” he says.

The exhibition will remain on view in the Design Gallery, 70 Human Ecology Building, 1300 Linden Drive, until Sunday, Dec. 19. A second exhibition focusing on sustainability through green design will open in February 2005.

For more information, contact the Design Gallery at (608) 262- 8815 or visit the Design Gallery’s Web site.