{"id":13120,"date":"2025-11-26T09:07:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T15:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=13120"},"modified":"2025-11-26T09:07:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T15:07:30","slug":"architecture-seminar-brings-a-pop-of-big-art-to-milwaukee-lakefront","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/architecture-seminar-brings-a-pop-of-big-art-to-milwaukee-lakefront\/","title":{"rendered":"Architecture seminar brings a pop of big art to Milwaukee lakefront"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>
Associate Professor Whitney Moon (left) and UWM student Kirsten Josefchuk are surrounded by inflatable art inspired by designs by students in a seminar taught by Moon. (UWM Photo\/Troye Fox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This summer, visitors to Milwaukee\u2019s McKinley Beach were greeted by an unexpected sight: a massive, colorful inflatable sculpture rising against the skyline. The installation, first conceived by UWM architecture students as\u00a0HydroBloom, was further developed by FuzzPop Workshop into a final piece titled\u00a0Threshold.<\/p>\n

The work debuted as part of ArtBlaze, a series of art and music festivals coordinated by\u00a0Joy Engine<\/a>\u00a0that activated the lakefront throughout the summer.<\/p>\n

The project emerged from ARCH 601\/801: AIR, a design seminar led by Associate Professor Whitney Moon, which asked students to explore inflatable architecture and its role in public art. In collaboration with\u00a0FuzzPop Workshop<\/a>, students researched, sketched, and modeled concepts before presenting proposals for potential fabrication.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel Murray of FuzzPop reached out to me about a year ago after hearing about my architectural research with inflatables, and we discussed potential ways to collaborate,\u201d said Moon, who was slated to teach a seminar in Spring 2025 about the history of pneumatic architecture. Meanwhile, FuzzPop was invited to participate in ArtBlaze again in summer 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Four
Associate Professor Whitney Moon (from left) stands on
\nthe beach with FuzzPop founder and creative director
\nDaniel Murray, Kirsten Josefchuk and Fuzz Pop creative
\ndirector John Kowalczyk. (UWM Photo\/Troye Fox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe decided to pivot the focus of the course towards operating as a collaborative think tank around designing with air,\u201d Moon recalled. \u201cThis was a great chance for architecture students to literally think outside the box and to generate design proposals that could directly contribute to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, one design was selected for further development. Created by students Kiera Jensen, Isabel Domyslawski, Reagan Courtright and Haley Grube, the proposal for\u00a0HydroBloom<\/em>\u00a0captured the jury\u2019s imagination with its organic form and playful presence.<\/p>\n

From proposal to reality<\/h2>\n

For the winning team, seeing their design evolve into\u00a0Threshold\u00a0was a transformative experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur vision for\u00a0HydroBloom\u00a0was to create an ethereal presence that blurred the boundary between land and water, reality and dream \u2014 inspiring a deeper relationship between water and people,\u201d Grube said. \u201cSeeing a school project come to life doesn\u2019t happen too often, so we really wanted to design something interactive and engaging that would spark curiosity and connect with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a historian and architect, Moon is an advocate for collaboration between academia and practice because it exposes all participants to new skill sets and more expansive ways of thinking. She reflected on the impact of the collaboration itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuzzPop was able to engage the students in a hands-on way that was simultaneously conceptual and technical \u2014 and also fun,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the resulting design is an exciting departure for Fuzz Pop because it is abstract and spatial, and for the architectural community it is a reminder that we need to allow for more playfulness and performance in the built environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building connections<\/h2>\n

The collaboration also led to professional opportunities for students. Kirsten Josefchuk, who participated in the AIR seminar, was hired by FuzzPop Workshop for a summer internship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with Fuzzpop Workshop reminded me a lot of being in studio, except this time I was working with real large-scale designs with a very real budget and timeline,\u201d Josefchuk said. \u201cI learned a lot as a designer about what it takes to see a project come to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josefchuk served as FuzzPop\u2019s representative at its Summerfest installation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunicating the project\u2019s goals and creative vision to a diverse audience was a new unique and exciting experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For Fuzz Pop Workshop, the collaboration was just as meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt FuzzPop Workshop, each project is a new experiment, and we were thrilled at how game the students were to dive in, developing concepts and designs that were both highly original and professional,\u201d said FuzzPop founder and creative director Daniel Murray.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the experience was an opportunity for students to tap into their creative potential while pushing on the boundaries of architecture in exciting new ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Oliver Johnson, UW-Milwaukee<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/uwm.edu\/news\/architecture-seminar-brings-a-pop-of-big-art-to-milwaukee-lakefront\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, visitors to Milwaukee\u2019s McKinley Beach were greeted by an unexpected sight: a massive, colorful inflatable sculpture rising against the skyline. The installation, first conceived by UWM architecture students as\u00a0HydroBloom, was further developed by FuzzPop Workshop into a final piece titled\u00a0Threshold. The work debuted as part of ArtBlaze, a series of art and music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":13125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[107],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-13120","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-milwaukee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/13120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=13120"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=13120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}