From 2015 to 2020, French & Michigan operated a residency program nicknamed Maxwell House. The residency was designed to allow architecture graduate students a shared living space in an active urban neighborhood while contributing and interacting within a small creative community known as the Compound in the Southtown neighborhood of San Antonio. A collection of five duplexes owned and sustained by Mike Casey, the Compound had long functioned as residences, studios, galleries, and community spaces.

Maxwell House was a three bedroom, two bath residency with a kitchen, library, and gallery. The space housed three graduate students each year at below market rate rent. Requirements for residency included graduate level enrollment in the architecture program at The University of Texas at San Antonio, stewardship of the house and landscape, and a desire to support other artists living in the Compound. This program provided an opportunity to apply knowledge learned in school to direct engagement with other students, artists, and the community.

Managed under the direction of longtime former resident Billy Lambert, the residency housed 12 students enrolled at UTSA. These residents were top of their class and well regarded by faculty. Our former residents are 67% minority, 33% women, and 25% international students from India, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Maxwell House hosted local architects and former residents for fireside chats, hosted visiting architects from Australia, and acquired the book collection of architect Morgan Price for F&M’s nonprofit library.