100 North Wisconsin
Madison, WisconsinLocated on the corner of Mifflin and Wisconsin Streets in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, the site for the project occupies one of the blocks surrounding the historic Capitol Square. The new 12-story building contains 40 units of condominium housing on its upper 8 stories, 3 stories of commercial office space, ground floor retail, and five levels of underground parking to support all of the above uses. The project has been built of materials and systems of the highest quality, unusual for the housing industry today. The owner maintains a large portfolio of historic housing, and wanted a building that would last generations. A post-tensioned concrete frame structure was clad in a golden limestone for its base, with a tower of clear glass and copper column covers rising above. With a design that was clearly contemporary in character, the design bucked a pervasive trend to make most housing "fake historic" in design. The project also broke new ground in treating its units as "white boxes," that is, units whose design could be customized and made as unique as the owners within them. In many ways, it is the housing equivalent of the flexible office building that has come to dominate the American workplace market today.