The following is an Executive Profile of Principal Vaishali Wagh in the Milwaukee Business Journal, written by Teddy Nykiel:
When Vaishali Wagh first designed a high school facility for the Hmong American Peace Academy several years ago, the project was coming in over budget.
The Milwaukee charter school was looking for more than just classrooms — it also wanted a museum, an event space and a resource center within the building to honor Hmong culture and host community and fundraising events.
Wagh came up with a solution that reduced the project’s square footage — and its cost — by creating a flexible space with partition walls to serve multiple functions in one room. The $29 million project went on to be a winner of the Milwaukee Business Journal’s 2022 Real Estate Awards.
“Sometimes those budgetary challenges really force you to kind of become creative with things,” Wagh said. “I think the constraints just give me a very solid springboard.”
Designing under constraints — whether they’re driven by finances, the physicality of the site or a property’s historic status — is one of Wagh’s strengths as an architect. And in an environment where high costs and interest rate uncertainty pose challenges for new construction, the skill is acutely relevant.
Wagh is one of five principals at Continuum Architects + Planners, a Milwaukee architecture firm that’s nearing an inflection point as its founding principals get closer to retirement. The firm’s co-founders have identified Wagh as one of its next-generation leaders.
The principals split Continuum’s administrative duties, with Wagh leading human resources for the company’s 18 employees — a role she tackles “not just as a task, but with a full heart,” said Continuum Principal and Co-Founder Falamak Nourzad.
In the field, Wagh primarily works on Continuum’s housing and K-12 education projects, with current jobs including Mandel Group’s Harlow & Hem apartment development in downtown Wauwatosa.
Wagh also specializes in historic consulting, which involves preparing building nominations for the National Register of Historic Places and helping clients qualify for historic tax credits. She played that role for the Community Within the Corridor, which is transforming the former Briggs & Stratton Corp. industrial campus at 32nd and West Center streets into a unique, community-focused affordable housing development.
“We’re super proud of that, because it’s such a transformational project,” Wagh said. “We feel like we are building this city one brick at a time, because we literally did that (with) each brick that went back in place to recreate the historical buildings. … They were falling apart and deteriorating so badly.”
Wagh’s interest in the building industry started at a young age.
Growing up in India, she tagged along to construction sites with her father, a developer and civil engineer. That gave her exposure to the more technical side of the industry, she said.
Later, higher education helped her hone her creativity. She earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in India before coming to the U.S. in 1992 for a graduate architecture program at Iowa State University.
After Wagh and her husband met in graduate school, they moved to Berkeley, California, where he pursued a Ph.D. and she began working as an architect.
Another move for her husband’s career in academia took them to Muncie, Indiana. With few opportunities for architecture jobs there, Wagh opted to pursue a master’s degree in ceramics from Ball State University. That education indirectly informs her approach to architecture, she said.
In 2007, the couple moved to Milwaukee and Wagh joined Continuum. She was drawn to the firm in part because two of its co-founders were women.
“That was very unusual,” Wagh said. “That was a big motivation for me to apply.”
One of Continuum’s co-founders, Ursula Twombly, stepped back from the business in 2016. The other two co-founders, Nourzad and Robert Barr, are still with the company. Continuum’s other two principals are Corey Lapworth and Michael Soto.
“We see Corey and Vaishali as really taking the lead,” Nourzad said. “We cherish their youthfulness and their vision that represents the future to come.”
With affordable housing representing a major market for Continuum, Wagh said the business views itself as a resource for emerging developers pursuing those projects. It was the architect for Eighteen87 on Water, a recently completed project by Rule Enterprises that added mixed-income apartments on Milwaukee’s east side.
Continuum is also designing The Kin at Freshwater, a mixed-income housing project in Milwaukee’s Harbor District that Rule Enterprises is developing alongside Milwaukee’s Emem Group.
Other major projects in the pipeline for Continuum include a new Wisconsin history center building on Madison’s Capitol Square and a new engineering building for the University of Wisconsin Madison, although Wagh isn’t directly involved in designing those. Both projects are preparing to seek construction bids in the next few months, she said.
Wagh envisions Continuum remaining a relatively small firm while continuing to tackle catalytic projects that contribute to Milwaukee’s growth. She anticipates taking on more historic renovations and affordable housing developments, among other things.
“We are so aligned with the goals of the city itself, in terms of the growth of the city, environmental justice and housing justice,” Wagh said. “We would love to do more and more of that.”
Photo by Kenny Yoo