ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS NEWS Wins
Design
Competition
Spring/Fall
images: Román Montoto
photo: Bruce Haglund
Montoto
2012
In this issue Honored Faculty & Students Studies Abroad-Rome & China Studio News Student/Faculty Awards Faculty Updates Design Notes from Alums Updates from Alums Coming and Going
The electronic newsletter of the Programs in Architecture and Interior Design in Moscow and Boise.
Two views of Román Montoto’s winning design for the Bay View Neighborhood Art Stop.
In April Román Montoto learned that his entry to the Bay View Art Stop Design Competition, Urban CounterPose, had won. This competition for the design of a bus shelter and monumental art installation on a residual traffic island in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI, was a two-stage process. Initial entries were blind peer-reviewed in January by the competition committee comprised of residents, architects, artists, and city officials to determine a short list of finalists. The second stage included interviews with the committee, design development, and presentations to the public with Q & A as well as a public vote. Both the vote tallies from the public meeting and competition committee were in favor of Montoto’s proposal. The design for Urban Counter-Pose included satisfying several design criteria. A primary goal identified from the RFP was to establish a northern entry into the Bay View District, which inspired a design that activates the intervention’s scale and proportion as “Urban Counter-Position” to movement and views around the site; a process of finding equilibrium to an imbalanced place where vehicular circulation and passing views create a rift at the cross-roads. The scheme’s development is catalyzed by designing to mend that rift and create a highly visible and monumental sculpture as a unique marker for Bay View. Approaching, waiting, moving, and gathering throughout the site unfolds into a sweeping experience of scalar variation from intimate to broad and gestural. Bay View’s independent mind-set and industrial history manifest into materials selection and composition. A heavy concrete base aludes to the well-rooted and independent community, while the springing steel structure conotes a sense of industrious and creative resurgence, open-ended and optimistic for the future. The Urban Counter-Pose establishes ‘place’ with compositions of space and material that evoke a sense of ‘becoming’—becoming a celebrated gathering node for the community, becoming a stimulant for future commerce in the area, and becoming a marker and signifier of Bay View within the City of Milwaukee. —Román Montoto