Sofia Lopez, Madison Sabel, and Ian Luecht, “Mobile Design Box”
Mentors: Mo Zell and Alex Timmer, Architecture
Oral Presentation Block 1

The Mobile Design Box (MDB) Project is a pop-up gallery that transforms existing vacant spaces across Milwaukee into places where local communities can engage in a variety of opportunities. Over the past three years, the MDB has occupied vacant storefronts in the Near West Side Neighborhood and the Historical Mitchell Street Neighborhood. The current location at 1001 W. Historic Mitchell Street, will open to the public in April with a series of mobile furniture pieces designed in the UWM SARUP Marcus Prize Studio. Our goal has been to reimagine this furniture in the space at 1001. We spent time both on-site and off-site understanding methods in which the space and furniture could become codependent while still allowing for many programmatic possibilities. Through an iteration process, we envisioned diverse uses for the space and identified different roles for the pieces. We are eager to establish a space that supports the local community of Historic Mitchell Street.