MILWAUKEE_The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning has announced that the 2025 Urban Edge Award will support a major symposium and publication on housing in the American city, one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Selected and curated by Assistant Professor Sam Schuermann, the symposium will gather leading architects, theorists and educators for a three-day public program centered on the single-family lot.
Titled “On housing: The single-family lot and the American city,” the symposium runs Oct. 22–24, at UW-Milwaukee and will include keynote lectures, panel discussions, student workshops and an exhibition in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning’s Jim Shields Gallery of Architecture and Urbanism sponsored by HGA.
Urban Edge Award recipients and symposium participants are Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann, Jennifer Bonner, Mitch McEwen, Laura Salazar-Altobelli and Pablo Sequero, Paul Andersen, Adrienne Brown, Jonathan Tate and Jesus Vassallo.
In spring 2026, students will engage in a seminar dedicated to editing a publication that documents and expands on the symposium. The resulting volume will feature transcribed conversations, essays and visual materials by symposium participants.
Milwaukee is an excellent place to question and reconsider the single-family typology for contemporary housing, according to Schuermann, who cites the city’s racialized history, labor history, scale, historic Rust-belt fabric and Midwestern ethos.
Through this initiative, the Urban Edge Award continues its mission to support timely architectural research that engages urgent questions in urban design.
About the Urban Edge Award
The Urban Edge Award was created in 2006. Modeled after the school’s Marcus Prize and supported by the Wisconsin Preservation Fund and the law firm of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, the Urban Edge Award recognizes excellence in urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change within the public realm. Funding for the Urban Edge Award totals $50,000. Learn more at: https://uwm.edu/architecture/
