Groundwork MKE
2026
Story-finding, re-framing, cross-domain synthesis
MS Design + Innovation, Capstone on affordable housing in Wisconsin
Team: Sammy Supatchaipisit, Bingxuan He, Mya Lovett
Groundwork MKE is a partnership model that connects technical colleges training trades workers with community organizations doing neighborhood revitalization. Students earn certified training hours by working on real community projects. Communities get skilled labor they couldn't otherwise afford.
01 / Context
What helps people and communities thrive?
As part of the Master of Science in Design + Innovation (MD+I) program’s capstone on wicked problems, our team spent eight months on one of Wisconsin's most urgent challenges: housing.
We started with a six-week intake sprint, immersing ourselves in the state's housing system through guest speakers, research, site visits, and conversations with residents, advocates, developers, policymakers, and community leaders. We looked for design opportunities through one question:
02 / Work
We began by mapping systems and pinpointing levers that when changed, would influence the entire ecosystem. We identified two substantial levers:
The trades workforce is shrinking, which drives up housing costs and slows neighborhood development.
Community revitalization–which integrates safe, affordable homes with critical community amenities, employment opportunities, and local support services—is underfunded.
Through these two levers and their nuance, we thought: To address this dual challenge, we reframe trades not just as technical labor but as a creative and community-driven practice that supports long-term neighborhood stability.
The proposed solution is a partnership model where community nonprofits and technical colleges collaborate, allowing students to earn certified training hours by working on real community projects.
The playbook walks each side through what they need to settle before and during a partnership:
What they can offer, how supervision and funding work, how a project fits the academic calendar, and what success looks like. It is a flip book, with one half starts with the institution, and the other starts with the neighborhood. They meet in the middle at the shared agreement.
The case study acts as a speculative artifact to help paint a rich detailed picture of this future.
03 / Impact
We produced two tools.