February 17 is Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” traditionally a Catholic holiday that celebrates the last night of indulging in guilty pleasures before participating in the penitential season of Lent. Celebrated around the world with elaborate parties, parades, dancing, and other frivolities, its festivities are most famously celebrated within the United States today in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, the site of the first American Mardi Gras.
Three finalists have been selected to move forward in the Van Alen Institute (VAI) and New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s (NORA) “Future Ground” open ideas competition. Each will be provided with a $15,000 stipend to investigate and develop long-term design and policy strategies for vacant land reuse in New Orleans.
“Too often, vacant land has been seen only as a remnant of or absence within the 20th century city,” described the VAI. “Today, with a critical mass of designers, policymakers, scholars, artists, activists, and residents creating pilot projects, thoughtful studies, and new kinds of urbanism on abandoned properties, it is possible to imagine this land as an integral part of the future city.”
Tulane City Center and a team of Tulane architecture students worked together with the Lousiana Outdoor Outreach Program to design a shade structure made from traffic yield signs for a challenge course in City Park. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding tree canopy and the structure of the ropes course, the design team crafted a faceted, curving aluminum canopy suspended by steel cables with an earthen berm for seating below. More about the pavilion, after the break.
What will New Orleans look like in one year? Ten years? Fifty years? The Future Ground design competition, hosted by the Van Alen Institute, is looking for multidisciplinary teams help shape the city's future by answering these questions. The competition is specifically looking for teams to "generate flexible design and policy strategies to reuse vacant land in New Orleans, transforming abandoned landscapes into resources for the city."
Material Minds, presented by ArchDaily Materials, is our new series of short interviews with architects, designers, scientists, and others who use architectural materials in innovative ways. Enjoy!
Arthur Andersson of Andersson-Wise Architects wants to build ruins. He wants things to be timeless - to look good now and 2000 years from now. He wants buildings to fit within a place and time. To do that he has a various set of philosophies, processes and some great influences. Read our full in-depth interview with Mr. Andersson, another revolutionary "Material Mind," after the break.
Just two days after the passing of R. Allen Eskew, FAIA, the New Orleans-based architect’s practice, Eskew + Dumez + Ripple (EDR), has been announced as the recipient of the 2014 AIA Architecture Firm Award. Presented by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the annual award is the highest honor bestowed by to a firm by the national institution. EDR is being recognized for “rigorously crafting Modernism to repair, restore, and enhance the exceptionally unique cultural and historic context of New Orleans.”
Ever since the New Republic published Lydia DePillis's piece entitled "If you Rebuild it, They Might Not Come" - a criticism of the progress of Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation - numerous blogs and journals have been in a uproar, defending Make It Right's efforts at rebuilding the vastly devastated Lower Ninth Ward and presenting a much more forgiving perspective on the progress of the neighborhood since the engineering disaster that exacerbated the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To date, 86 LEED Platinum homes have been designed and constructed by world-renowned architects including Frank Gehry and Morphosis, at a cost of approximately $24 million. Make It Right has promised to build up to 150 such homes, but DePillis's article points out how amenities in the neighborhood are low and how the number of residents returning to the neighborhood is dwindling. Make It Right has made a commitment and the debate that ensues questions whether it is going far enough in delivering its promise to rebuilding community.
Find out more after the break.
Architects: Morphosis Architects Location: 1638 Tennessee St, New Orleans, LA 70117, USA Project Year: 2009 Project Area: 88.0 sqm Photographs: Iwan Baan
Make It Right is proud to announce the completion of the Frank Gehry-designed, New Orleans’ duplex in the Lower 9th Ward. The colorful, LEED Platinum home is part of an affordable and sustainable community that is currently being developed by Brad Pitt’s Make It Right foundation within the NOLA neighborhood most devastated from Hurricane Katrina.
“I really believe in what Brad is doing for the community and was honored to be included,” said Frank Gehry. “I wanted to make a house that I would like to live in and one that responded to the history, vernacular and climate of New Orleans. I love the colors that the homeowner chose. I could not have done it better.”
Continue after the break for more.
Bayou-luminescence, one of ten site-specific installations commissioned by the New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects, was a collaboration between Igor Siddiqui, the principal of the Austin-based design practice ISSSStudio and Matt Hutchinson, the principal of San-Francisco-based firm PATH. The project was included as a part of DesCours, the annual architecture and art event on view at various locations in city from December 2 through 11, 2011. More images and architects’ description after the break.
DesCours is a free, public, ten-night architecture and art event now in its fifth year, held December 2-December 11 in New Orleans.
This event invites internationally renowned architects and artists to create architecture installations within ‘hidden’ locations in the heart of New Orleans, including private courtyards, rooftops, abandoned buildings and walkways, all locations normally unseen, inaccessible or unused by the public.
More information on the event after the break.
Check out a preview we spotted on PublicInterestDesign of Tulane University’s School of Architecture URBANbuild program, a total collaborative effort of “individuals, organizations, and businesses committed to revitalizing New Orleans’ rich cultural and architectural heritage.” Working with Professor Byron Mouton, Make It Right and Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, students have designed and built several LEED-certified homes such as URBANbuild 04 featured in the clip. This particular residence is situated in Central City of New Orleans and completely breaks with the traditional “shotgun homes” that line the streets. The young homeowner, Tami, appreciates the students’ talents and abilities to go beyond what the neighborhood, and even the city, is comfortable with to create a new urban identity. Challenged by Mouton to introduce new ideas, the students have created a beautiful residence that they can certainly be proud of and one that Tami loves View her story and a bit of the project’s journey in the video.
Tulane School of Architecture has announced their 2011-2012 school year lecture series featuring Rafael Moneo, Billie Tsien, Adam Yarinsky and others, including a string of lectures on Urban Innovations co-sponsored by The Murphy Institute. More information on the lectures after the break.
Tulane University’s School of Architecture program has joined forces with IBM Intelligent Buildings Management and Johnson Controls to develop a Smarter Building pilot program. Tulane’s first project aims to transform Richardson Memorial Hall, home of the School of Architecture, into a living laboratory. The retrofit of this historic building will not just create a more efficiently adapted building but will also provide an opportunity for architecture students to gain a unique skill set coupled with practical experience.
Every year, the AIA stages a competition for an intervention that brings to life the historic city of New Orleans. This year the institute selected a scheme by Gernot Riether that proposed a series of glowing spherical enclosures sited within the hidden courtyards of the city’s distinctive French Quarter. They would be illuminated in the evening, dramatically modulating the host environment and bringing attention to these romantic, mysterious and usually private spaces, typically located deep in the block, away from the street.
Architect: Gernot Riether Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Project Team: Gernot Riether, Valerie Bolen, Rachel Dickey, Emily Finau, Tasnouva Habib, Knox Jolly, Pei-Lin Liao, Keith Smith, April Tann Photographs: Courtesy of Gernot Riether
Scheduled for demolition in Summer 2011, the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School is a treasured piece of regional modernism in New Orleans. Designed by Charles Colbert, the school has served the historic African-American neighborhood of Tremé since it opened in 1955. It is just one of over thirty public schools that were constructed at that time. These schools were designed by architects who practiced a regional modernism, incorporating innovative design for circulation, ventilation and lighting. Of the thirty schools only four are still standing, three of which are threatened with demolition (including Phillis Wheatley). DOCOMOMO Louisiana is advocating for the restoration through adaptive reuse for the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School. “A Plea For Modernism” was created by Evan Mather and is narrated by actor Wendell Pierce.
