Milwaukee Guest House

Located adjacent to the Guest House – a homeless shelter just west of Downtown Milwaukee – in their Cream City Gardens, where the guests tend to a half-acre of urban farm. The Garden Pavilion acts simultaneously as a fragment of urban infrastructure as well as a community assembly point. 

The structure has evolved into a community space for resting, eating, or just talking with friends. It has an integral component to the homeless shelter rehabilitation and education programs as a focal point to their Urban Agriculture Training Program. In addition, it has become an icon of the urban farm, the homeless shelter itself, and the neighborhood at large. 

The Pavilion is a modest structure, composed of steel & wood – with special attention paid to the interaction between those two materials. The intentionally exaggerated roof creates a large catchment area, which then directs the water into a cedar clad cistern before being used for irrigation. The placement serves to readily feed water to the gardens as well as becoming a focal point for larger group gatherings. 

Each year the Pavilion collects 17,220 gallons of storm water within the cistern and adjacent rain gardens and feeds the 60 raised garden beds that are responsible for growing 3500 pounds of fresh produce a year. 

The Pavilion has become part of a larger narrative for the men who stay at the shelter and eventually move on to find related jobs in farming or food. It also speaks directly to the mission of the Guest House, stressing the importance of sustainable practices and the effect they can have in elevating the City and our individual lives.