Michael Ford Brings Hip-Hop Architecture to the Bronzeville Center for the Arts

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Photo courtesy of Michael Ford

Michael Ford of BrandNu Design

Michael Ford of BrandNu Design

The $55 million Bronzeville Center for the Arts (BCA) and its 50,000-square-foot museum will be located on the corner of North Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in the central city. As a lighthouse of creativity for the Black community, the BCA will anchor the Bronzeville business district. 

With funding nearly half complete, the BCA board of directors recently chose BrandNu Design Studio as the architecture firm to design the BCA. Headed by Michael Ford, BrandNu Design Studio has offices in Madison, Dallas and New York. It specializes in cultural centers and museums, with a design portfolio that includes New York’s Universal Hip Hop Museum and New Jersey’s Black Inventors Hall of Fame Museum. In 2022, Michael Ford was named Young Architect of the Year by Wisconsin’s Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Known as the “Hip-Hop Architect,” Ford is a designer, educator and keynote speaker. Through hip-hop architecture, Ford provides an alternative to the western canon in architecture and urban theory. His ideas have been published in venues including the Oprah Winfrey Network, Rolling Stone, Architect magazine, Vibe magazine and NBC’s “The TODAY Show.” His manner is measured, thoughtful and confident. He grew up in Detroit and received a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Detroit Mercy.

What was your career evolution as it relates to establishing your successful BrandNu Design Studio business?

The topic of my master’s thesis was “Cultural Innovation, a Hip Hop Inspired Architecture.” My thesis explored the history of architectural styles and how they are created. My theory was that every era in history has an associated architecture. I explored this question: “What style of architecture will result from the biggest cultural movement of all time, the hip hop culture?” Later, when I was working at architectural firms, people became aware of my graduate thesis, and I began to give lectures on my hip hop theory at colleges and universities, and at design conferences around the country.

So how did this all evolve into launching your own BrandNu Design Studio firm?

My lectures started growing in scale. For instance, I was a keynote speaker at several design conferences such as the American Institute of Architects. Michelle Obama was also one of the other keynotes. In 2010, I relocated from Detroit to Madison, Wisconsin, and I worked at a great firm there, Flad Architects. But I wanted to focus on my own projects, and so I started my Brandnu Design Studio. Our goal is to work on projects important to my design philosophy. We go after projects that improve the quality of life or tell Black stories. 

Where is your architectural firm, BrandNu Design Studio, located?

Home base is Madison, but we have an office in Dallas and in New York.

I understand that your architectural style is centered on social justice and the built environment, challenging the standard approaches to architecture and design. What are the standard approaches and how are you challenging them?

The standard approach is based on the lived experiences and the memories of architects and designers, and their perceptions of space and place and how they play out in their design styles. But only two percent of architects are Black. Therefore, it is rare that you hear a design approach based on the lived experiences of African Americans. When I do a project, during the design process, I am heavily engaged with the community where the structure will be located. In other words, I do not design for a community but rather with a community. Community members have seats at our table.

You once said, “My work is defined by my love of Black music. My work extracts the rhythms, patterns, textures and structures which are unique to the elements of hip-hop culture and converts them to architectural structure.” How would you define hip hop-culture?

We are in the 51st anniversary of hip hop music. Hip hop is now the most consumed music genre around the world. There are five universal truths of hip hop culture: DJ-ing, MC-ing, Breaking, Graffiti and Knowledge of Self. For example, I incorporated these principles into my textures, math, and pattern-making that I designed in carpets in collaboration with Shaw Contract, one of the world’s leading carpet manufacturers. My approach to architecture is not purely based on aesthetics, not whimsical, and not inspired by graffiti. I try to incorporate a 51-year backlog of critiques of urban space embedded in hip hop lyrics. We spent time dancing to those lyrics but not solving the problems related in the lyric stories. They are critiquing their urban spaces—schools, houses, streets, neighborhoods and spatial inequalities.

And how does your hip hop philosophy manifest itself in your architecture and design work?

My philosophy is reflected in our programming, the types of projects we go after. Architecture is more than bricks and mortar just like hip hop is more than beats and rhymes. It is about exploring the depths of the culture, and the power architecture has over people.

Let’s talk about the future Bronzeville Center for the Arts in Milwaukee. You were recently awarded the design contract. According to John Russick, BCA’s managing director, $55 million is the current estimate for the construction of the new building, which will contain 50,000 square feet. How will you go about making the design plans, given this budget? And what will your hip hop style mean to the new BCA building?

People sometimes think the architect does the drawings, and the building gets built, but it is really a collaborative project. For the BCA, I will be working with other design professionals including Peter Cook of HGA Architects and Engineers and also with the prominent landscape architect, Walter Hood. We are all nationally known African American designers. 

Do you see your hip hop style working its way into the new building?

Most definitely. Every project I work on has some element of hip hop, whether patterns in the public plaza or textures on a building facade. As for the BCA, we are talking with the local community to get input, even young Milwaukee people at our architecture camp shared design ideas for the BCA.  

Currently, less than two percent of architects in the United States are Black and less than one percent are Black women. You've said that if architecture can be more diverse, it could change the world. How would it change the world?

When architecture continues to get more diverse, there will be designers who take on the challenges of diverse communities. For instance, injustices to Black and brown women and men, and police and citizen brutality happen in public places. Architecture is the backdrop for these events acted out in public. Architects try to plan for everything we think will happen in our spaces, for instance, a public plaza where impromptu skateboarders can perform, or a victory rally for a sports team, or a graduation ceremony. Security in spaces play a part in whether people are safe. As the architecture profession becomes more diverse, we have the opportunity that allows people to become their best selves. If you think about it, where you spend your day has been scripted by designers.

You created The Hip Hop Architecture Camp for young students of color, and you hosted a camp here in Milwaukee not long ago. There is no cost to attend the camps. You describe the camp as “an international initiative which uses hip-hop culture as a catalyst to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, design, and urban planning in a culturally relevant way.” How does your architecture camp accomplish this?

In 2016, I started the camp in Madison in partnership with Madison Public Libraries and the city planning department. The goal is to expose Black children to hip hop, one of the most creative cultures history has ever seen. Young people created hip hop, and they are still the cultural validators. No matter where you go in the world, people are emulating young Black and from major American cities like Detroit or Milwaukee. This includes the fashion industry copying the style of how kids dress in urban Black neighborhoods. Even the hip hop language is adopted around the world. These Black urban kids are trendsetters, and yet they don’t benefit financially. Hip hop is a multi-billion-dollar marketing force. In each Hip Hop Architecture Camp, I encourage the young participants to bring their hip-hop culture along, the made-up words, the language, the fashion, the dancing and music, and we will explore ways we can convert that culture into architecture. I tell the kids that this hip-hop design approach will set you apart from traditional architects. 

Do your students create architectural designs at the camp?

They do three things: One, they deconstruct hip hop song lyrics and reconstruct it as architecture. Two, we include local or nationally known rappers or MCs, who teach the children how to write in rap language. For instance, in Milwaukee, the young people wrote rap songs about Bronzeville Center for the Arts. Three, we take them to a studio where they record their songs and create a music video. They also learn about how a studio is designed.

According to you, the built environment has a profound impact on the lives of its inhabitants, but these effects are disproportionately detrimental for people of color. Can you further explain?

If you are interested in urban planning in architecture, listen to the stories in the hip hop lyrics, and how they describe their urban neighborhoods. We can design and build structures by understanding the urban culture. I have a word/text I made up … Hip Hop Architecture: The Post Occupancy Evaluation of Modernism. In other words, whenever architects design a building, we do a post-occupancy evaluation so we can improve on our next project, for example, a hospital. In public housing for Black and brown people, there is hardly ever a post-occupancy evaluation. Public housing is rarely designed by Black architects, yet through hip hop, the residents have told the stories of living in that environment.