Rebuilding New Orleans
In August 2005, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In the time since the storm, discernable progress in the city has come at a slow pace. Residents in many poorer neighborhoods have not received the assistance they needed to make their communities viable again.
In an attempt to impact the situation in New Orleans in a positive way, Mark Ryan, faculty associate in the ASU School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, led a team of students and faculty in the first ever design|build program. The mission was to help students understand in a direct, hands-on way not only the consequences of their design actions, but also the impact and responsibility their work carries through to the larger society.
This group raised all the necessary funding, then designed, mocked up and fabricated the project in Arizona. They assembled it on campus for their final review, then disassembled it, drove it to New Orleans and spent 14-hour days, literally sunrise to sunset, for eight days permanently installing the project on site.
This project is located in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans, on the same site where students from the Urban Build program at Tulane University are constructing their second house. Essentially a ‘rearyard’ condition, the site is significantly enhanced by the fact that it is a corner lot and has direct street access.
The basic project is comprised of a shade structure, a storage unit, a porch-like covered platform, and landscaping throughout the site, but the aim is higher. The hope is that this modest project might act, beyond the boundaries of its specific site, as a catalyst for further development and progress within the larger community.