Last week, members of the GCA team attended the annual MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary Gala. It was an evening worth attending not just to celebrate the organization, but to stay connected to the mission driving one of our most meaningful active projects.
Founded in 2013 by Sister MacCanon Brown, the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary operates as a daytime sanctuary and multi-resource center for Milwaukee’s unhoused population at 2461 W. Center St. in the Amani neighborhood. The sanctuary provides food, clothing, hygiene products, blankets, and winter warming services to some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. Sister Brown’s decades of advocacy and service to Milwaukee’s homeless community have made MBHS a cornerstone of the city’s safety net.
On the third floor of that same building, something new is taking shape.
GCA is currently designing a fully operational aquaponics system that will help supply the sanctuary’s food program directly from within the building. Alongside it, a dedicated classroom will give students and community members hands-on exposure to the aquaponics process and the broader principles of sustainable food production. The third floor will also house a museum honoring the history of urban agriculture in Milwaukee, displaying historic tools alongside a rotating gallery of images documenting the city’s garden movements across generations.
It is a project that asks architecture to do several things at once. Feed people. Teach people. Remember what came before. Every floor of that building is working toward the same purpose, and the third floor ties it together in a way that feels both practical and permanent.
That kind of clarity doesn’t come from a brief. It comes from showing up, sitting with the people who run the organization, and understanding what the building actually needs to do. Attending the gala was part of that. The drawings will be better for it.
Congratulations to Sister MacCanon Brown and the entire MBHS team on another year of extraordinary work. We are proud to be part of what grows next.
