Traditional architectural and preservation practices largely focus on methods and values attributed to high style architecture of prominence, overlooking elements important to vernacular neighborhoods and the communities that live within them. This fixation on the object rather than the human element does not lend itself to respond to community needs and heritages. This thesis proposes a new, community-based approach to preservation that diverges from traditional methods, instead drawing from human-centered design and values-based preservation.

Milwaukee’s Center Peace neighborhood faces long-standing issues of disinvestment, displacement, and inequity. Implementing design strategies and policy recommendations formed from analysis of oral histories, ethnographic research, policy, and human-centered design methodologies, will allow the community to transform the neighborhood’s dilapidated building stock into an opportunity, confronting these issues. These strategies and recommendations will encourage the city, developers, and landlords to become more responsive to residents while giving agency to renters and homeowners at a grassroots level.