Tulane City Center The Tulane City Center houses the School of Architecture’s urban research and outreach programs. Programs of the City Center vary over time, but share a focus on improving cities through fostering global urban research, the development of flexible and innovative urban strategies, and the provision of environmentally and cultur- ally informed principles to guide the design and revitalization of the contemporary metropolis. As the primary venue for outreach projects at the Tulane School of Architecture, the Tulane City Center, along with our primary col- laborator the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, enjoys a broad range of partnerships with numerous off-campus community-based and civic organizations. Each of these partner- ships provides opportunities for faculty and students to engage real issues in real communities and participate in the life of our city. Projects we have been involved with in the past have ranged in scale from small mobile neighborhood communication devices to urban scale neighborhood planning processes. We work in the realm of both private and public spaces and always recognize the importance of thinking beyond the scale at which a given project is expressed.
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Tulane City CenterThe Tulane City Center houses the School of Architecture’s urban research and outreach programs. Programs of the City Center vary over time, but share a focus on improving cities through fostering global urban research, the development of flexible and innovative urban strategies, and the provision of environmentally and cultur-ally informed principles to guide the design and revitalization of the contemporary metropolis. As the primary venue for outreach projects at the Tulane School of Architecture, the Tulane City Center, along with our primary col-laborator the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, enjoys a broad range of partnerships with numerous off-campus community-based and civic organizations. Each of these partner-ships provides opportunities for faculty and students to engage real issues in real communities and participate in the life of our city. Projects we have been involved with in the past have ranged in scale from small mobile neighborhood communication devices to urban scale neighborhood planning processes. We work in the realm of both private and public spaces and always recognize the importance of thinking beyond the scale at which a given project is expressed.
index of projectsupdated summer 2009
URBANbuild prototype 01URBANbuild prototype 02URBANbuild prototype 03URBANbuild 03 Open HouseURBANbuild prototype 04URBANbuild prototypesTulane Greenbuild 1De-Confusing GreenCitybuild Consortium of SchoolsHouse of Dance and FeathersAdjudicated Properties ReserachIdea Village Upper Ninth Ward Entrepreneur CenterHollygrove Growers Market & FarmHollygrove Growers PavilionViet Village Urban FarmNewWave article: Tulane Helps Community Build an Urban FarmGreen Pavilion Sustainable ExhibitionTeaching Responsible Earth Education (T.R.E.E.)Skate Park at City Park 2CornerstonesMapping New Orleans’s Historic & Cultural PlacesThe Alison Montana AMIACTProject SproutCommunity Health Center New Orleans EastPriestley PartnershipClassroom CompetitionTCC Street Front GalleryHow High?: Thoughts About Elevating Your HomeHope Haven
URBANbuild is a design|build studio in which teams of 12 stu-dents take on the design and construction of a prototypical home for a neighborhood in New Orleans. URBANbuild’s partner in the development of these houses is Neighborhood Housing Services. The first set of prototypical schemes were developed by the studio just six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city’s hous-ing stock.project team:
Byron MoutonSam Richards
Emilie TaylorAnthony Christiana Construction
Jared Bowers, Ned BrownClaire Cahan, Nick Crowley
Robert Deacon, David DemseyMark Enlow, Jason Heinze
Tyler Hutcherson, Matt HuxMaggie Joyce, Nicole McGlinn
Andrea Patrick, Jonathon ReyesCarlos Sanchez, Heather Skeehan
Emilie Taylor, Steve ThesmanBen Wasserman, Seth Welty
Daniel Zangara
The scheme chosen for construction in the summer of 2006 deals with issues of programmatic adaptability, newly required eleva-tion from ground in response to the flood, and maintaining the relationship of the dwelling to the typical public activities of New Orleans neighborhoods. The 1370 s.f., 3 bedroom, 2 bath, single family residence can be built with slight variations which produce a duplex scheme: accommodating multi generational living or two family living. Drawing from local traditions, the porch acts as a stage for the interaction between the public street front and the private family residence. This house was purchased by a New Orleans Police officer.
exhibited in: Venice Biennale, Ogden Muesum, Project NOLA
1930 Dumaine St. (Dumaine at Preiur)
published in: Domus, Cite, Times Picayune, Modern Shoestring, NY Timeswww.tulaneurbanbuild.com
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URBANbuildprototype 02
URBANbuild is a design|build studio in which teams of students take on the design and construction of a prototypical home for a neighborhood in New Orleans. URBANbuild’s partner in the development of these houses is Neighborhood Housing Services. This second URBANbuild studio took place in the fall of 2006, just one year after the storm. The 15 week construction of prototype 02 took place during the spring semester of 2007
project team: Byron Mouton
Sam RichardsEmilie Taylor
Anthony Christiana Construction
Emily Brudenell, Vincent CangiamillaVictoria Hernandez, Greg Hayslett
Emily Levings, Kristyn Cosgrove Jordan Gargas, Tyler Hutcherson
Charles Lucia, Trevor MeeksDavid Merlin, Craig ParkerMatt Shaver, Kristine Shull
Diana Steig, Francisco TiradoSam Vasquez, Ben Wasserman
Jesse Zryb
www.tulaneurbanbuild.com
URBANbuild’s second built prototype is a study in compact housing for substandard lots. Built on a 28’ wide by 100’ long corner site, this prototype is a variation on the common New Orleans camelback. The 1320 s.f. plan is efficient and the scheme can be expanded to take advantage of a larger lot. In form, the house is sheltered by two folded metal-clad walls which house the program, entry, and porches. This house takes advantage of its corner lot and engages the two street fronts by drawing the porches and entry around the side of the building. Built with panelized steel stud walls, prototype 02 is also an experiment in new building technologies and their potentials in the process of rebuilding the city.
exhibited in: Ogden Muesum, New Orleans City Hall
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, NHS, CITYBUILD
2856 Dryades st. (Dryades at Sixth)
published in: Architectural Record, Metal Mag, National Public Radio
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URBANbuildprototype 03
URBANbuild is a design build studio in which teams of students take on the design and construction of a prototypical home for a neighborhood in New Orleans. URBANbuild’s partner in the devel-opment of these houses is Neighborhood Housing Services. The third URBANbuild studio took place in the fall of 2007 and the 15 week construction phase followed in the spring semester of 2008. Prototype 03’s design and construction has been documented and released by a film crew from the Sundance Channel. the series is titled “Architecture School.”
project team: Byron Mouton
Sam RichardsEmilie Taylor
Anthony Christiana Construction
Christina Alvarado-SuarezAdriana Camacho, Ian Daniels Amarit Dulyapaibul, Nik Haak
Chris Halbrooks, Naomi Homison Cassandra Howard, Kimberly Lewis Caroline Lossack, Alex Mangimelli
Nicole Magnellia, Eric McClam Scott Mucci, Casey Roccanova
Amanda Rosen, Carter Scott Steve Smith, Lori Storm
www.tulaneurbanbuild.com
URBANbuild 03 is a study in compact housing for substandard lots. The scheme is two stories with a footprint of 25’ by 31’. The 1200 s.f. house is situated on an active corner in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood and responds to this condition by stacking the more private sleeping spaces above the public living spaces. In form, the house is defined and sheltered by a 6” wall made of Structural Insulated Panels which snakes around, expos-ing the public spaces to a dialogue with the street while protecting the quieter bedrooms above. The SIPs offer affordable housing providers an energy efficent framing system.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, NHS
1900 Seventh St. (Seventh at Dryades)
awarded: 2009 Residential Award of Merit, AIA New Orleans
published in: Architectural Record, New York Times, Metropolis, Times-Pic.
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URBANbuild 03Open House
The Tulane City Center and Neighborhood Housing Services hosted an open-house event at the third URBANbuild home in Central City. This house was built in the spring of 2008 by a group of fourth year students working with tight budget and lot restraints. With construction of this prototype complete, the City Center took the opportunity to showcase the house and to display the design features and eco-friendly components to the community.
Students and Professor Byron Mouton will be gave tours of the house. Brochures, fliers, and information about the house as well as gumbo from a neighborhood chef were provided. All members of the greater New Orleans community were invited to attend.
Features showcased in the event include:_structural insulated panel (SIP) construction_energy saving features including Low E double insulated windows and spray foam insulation_the use of sustainable building materials_issues relating to post-Katrina building code changes
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URBANbuildprototype 04
This year’s URBANbuild house has just finished construction in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood. The fourth URBANbuild built prototype has involved a class of 25 design students in the fall semester and 18 student builders in the spring. This house is a study in sustainable building practices and is on schedule to achieve LEED silver certification.
The 1200 s.f. scheme is one story with a footprint of 24’ by 71’ and is situated on a corner lot in the Central City neighborhood. Exterior walls are activated with an operable impact-resistant screened panel system. The overall form of the house is simple so that the screen system becomes the defining aspect of the project. In response to New Orleans’ shutter systems, typically used for shading and hurricane protection, the sliding panels can cover the interior public areas of the home or be moved to provide shading for the exterior porch spaces.
URBANbuild’s partner in the development of these houses is Neighborhood Housing Services, and Tony Christiana is the contractor of record.
project team: Byron Mouton, Sam Richards
Emilie Taylor, Doris GuerreroAnthony Christiana Construction
Robert Baddour, Amanda Brendle, Ben Flatau, Monica Breziner, Nicholas Cecchi,
Katie Champagne, Nick Chan, Chad Cramer, Susan Danielson, Shannon
Farrell, Matt Fox, Kevin Garfield, Lauren Goetz, Evan Gracey, Corey Green, Chris Halbrooks, Meaghan Hartney, Matthew
Hostetler, Colm Kennedy, Joseph Keppel, Peter Kilgust, Nicolas Mallet, Lauren
Martino, Suzanne Mon, Emily Orgeron, JP Pacelli, Marian Prado, Marie Richard,
Gregor Schuller, Kevin Tully, Karla Val-divia, Colin VanWingen, Bliss Young
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, NHS
2036 Seventh St.(Seventh at Saratoga)
URBANbuildprototypes
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, URBANBUILD
project team: Byron Mouton
students from URBANbuild studiosspring 2006
fall 2006fall 2007fall 2008
www.tulaneurbanbuild.com
Tulane URBANbuild, a program of the Tulane City Center, is a comprehensive program which provides community design services to actively support the rehabilitation of neighborhoods subject to damage in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Faculty and students engaged in URBANbuild studios are deployed to neighborhoods throughout the city to develop creative and sustainable urban design strategies, innovative designs for new housing, and proposals for site-specific urban interventions and large-scale mixed use urban environments.
The first set of prototypes developed by the URBANbuild studio during the spring of 2007 were designed for the Sixth Ward. These prototypes deal with the storm and the need for affordable housing prototypes through ideas of component based buildings that can be prefabricated and reconfigured in a number of ways.
As an integral component of the URBANbuild program, faculty and students are designing housing prototypes for each of the study neighborhoods. Over a three year period, the program has designed 16 single- and multi-family housing prototypes.
exhibited in: Ogden Museum of Southern Art
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TulaneGreenbuild 1
Award, Assoc. for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
Greenbuild 1, built by a studio of thesis students, is a prototype focused on modular construction and the prefabrication process with an emphasis on eco-friendly building materials and methods. Working as individuals, in small groups, and as an entire studio team, students spent weeks designing an affordable, eco-friendly and modular 1200 square foot home. The modules’ roofs are built flat which helps to brace the modules in transport and are hinged into position once on site to provide clerestory lighting. Additionally, the three modules can be reconfigured to fit different site conditions and provide varied outdoor porch spaces. The design is a result of green building techniques and modularity that can be adapted to different sites and neighborhoods with ease of construction at an affordable rate.
The studio’s strongest emphasis is on environmentally friendly approaches to building, and how those specific conditions impact our larger environment over time. The aim of this research is to develop an appropriate climatic and cultural prototype, one that could be produced and developed by the prefabrication industry for New Orleans.
project team:Coleman Coker, advising professor
Fritz Bader, project manager
Tim Adams Jr., Rebecca Bortolin,Rob Cogliandro, Nick Crowley,Jason Heinze, Mike Kazanzis,
Sean Kirkland, Joseph Lai,Andrea Martin Reade Nossoman,
Adam Porter, Jonathan Reyes,Daren Sodowski, Ashley Sparks,
David Siegel, Maggie Van Dusen,Jared Watson, Daniel Zangara
www.tulanegreenbuild.com
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, NHS, CITYBUILD
1939 Seventh St. (Seventh at Daneel)
awarded: Honorable Mention, Champions of Sustainability in Community
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De-ConfusingGreen
The Tulane City Center and Neighborhood Housing Services hosted the “De-Confusing Green” open-house event at the GREENbuild home in Central City. This prototypical house was designed and built with a strong focus on the flexibility of modular construction, the affordability of the prefabrication process, and inclusion of eco-friendly materials and methods. The intention of the fifth-year graduate students from Tulane School of Architecture was to create a sustainable home that appropriately responds to the unique climate and culture of New Orleans. With construction of this prototype is complete, the City Center took the oppor-tunity to showcase the house and to display the capabilities of eco-friendly components and sustainable design features to the community. Over 300 people attended the event where brochures, product information, tours from students, and gumbo from a neighborhood chef were provided.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, NHS, GROUNDWORK, AIA NEW ORLEANS
Dan Etheridge, CoordinatorEmily Levings, Assistant Coordinator
Features showcased in the event include: solar orientation, natural ventilation, covered outdoor spaces, angled roof, recycled & low-impact building products, green-bean Insulation, photovoltaic Systems, ventless HVAC, fluorescent lighting, landscaping strate-gies (by groundwork)
Open-house event1939 Seventh St.
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CITYbuildconsortium of schools
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, DESIGN CORPS, PROJECT LOCUS
participating schools:University of Arkansas
Boston Architectural CollegeGeorgia Institute of Technology
University of KansasUniversity of Kentucky
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity of Minnesota
Univeristy of MontanaUniveristy of Southern California
University of Texas at ArlingtonUniversity of Texas at Austin
Tulane UniversityWashington University
Wentworth Institute of Technology
www.citybuild.org
Doug Harmon, DirectorJared Hueter, Coordinator
Dan Etheridge, Assistant Director
Through the planning and building processes, CITYbuild works for social justice by partnering directly with local community groups to address their immediate and long-term sustainable needs.
By the end of our first year, CITYbuild had involved 30 national and international design based programs (representing 60 faculty and more than 600 students) partnering with 20 local community based organizations. The results of these partnerships include approximately 16 structures (from urban furniture to housing) built or rehabilitated and more than 200 design and project proposals.
exhibited in: Venice Beinnale, Cooper-Hewitt, Designery, Ogden Museum
selected publications: Domus, Architectural Record, ID, Cite, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, New Yorker
The idea for CITYbuild Consortium of Schools developed in the fall of 2005 to address the unprecedented design and rebuilding needs in New Orleans. The CITYbuild Consortium was initiated in January 2006 starting with 10 schools representing the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning and policy, real estate development, historic preservation and environ-mental studies. The role of host and first-year supporter was taken up by the Tulane City Center at Tulane School of Architecture.
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House of Danceand Feathers
In cooperation with Mr. Lewis, Project Locus and Kansas State University Architecture students designed and constructed an enclosed, 500 sq. ft. space for the House of Dance and Feathers. This small-scale neighborhood museum is a repository of cultural artifacts, focusing on Mardi Gras Indians, history of Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, and the Lower Ninth Ward community Within the structure, there are spaces for display, gathering, and working. In addition, the students redesigned and rehabilitated the Lewis Resi-dence. The House of Dance and Feathers and Lewis Residence were completed in August 2006.
project team: Patrick Rhodes, Advising Professor
Students from Kansas State UniversityDan Etheridge, Tulane City Center
Sarah Gamble, CITYbuildRonald Lewis, House of Dance and
Feathers
www.projectlocus.orgwww.citybuild.org
Ronald Lewis’s House of Dance and Feathers celebrates the old-est social aid and pleasure club in the Ninth Ward, the Big Nine Social Club, and Mardi Gras Indian tribes throughout New Orleans. Project Locus rebuilt the backyard museum to help reconstruct a sense of history and identity for this unique culture after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the original location. The museum, a flagship of the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, was rebuilt as a design resource for members of the community.
published in: Oz, Cite, Domus, New York Times, Design for the Other 90%
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, CITYBUILD, PROJECT LOCUS
1317 Tupelo Street(Lower Ninth Ward)
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PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, FANNIE MAE FOUNDATION
adjudiaced properties team:
project oversight Alan Lewis
Dan Etheridge
project coordinators Julie Kaminski
Becky Hutchinson
documentation team Sam Applebaum
Claire CahanJason HeinzeEmilie Taylor
Adjudicated Properties Research
This project — mapping the adjudicated properties in selected zones across New Orleans — was initiated at the Re-Inhabiting NOLA conference hosted in November 2005 by Tulane School of Architecture, Xavier University, and the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research. To move this project forward, the Tu-lane City Center received support from the Fannie Mae Foundation and hosted a summit in February 2006. In attendance were City of New Orleans agency leadership, local professionals, and experts from the National Vacant Properties Campaign. At this summit, the Tulane City Center established a methodology for assisting the City of New Orleans with the mapping and documenting of adjudi-cated properties in six selected study areas across the city. These areas include portions of the Sixth and Seventh Wards, Central City, Gert Town, and the Tulane/Gravier neighborhoods.
The process entailed synthesizing information from several City agency sources. This data was then supplemented with field documentation of general property conditions, photographs of each adjudicated property, photographs of the adjacent properties, and the location of each adjudicated property on Sanborn maps.
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To address the physical and resource issues faced by recovering businesses in New Orleans, Idea Village is developing a network of community Business Innovation Centers. These centers are intended as a catalyst to redevelop robust, neighborhood-specific commercial corridors. The Business Innovation Centers provide access to retail, technology, technical assistance, financial ser-vices, and other essential resources as a catalyst to fuel innovation and private investment throughout the community.
published in: The Times-Picayune
schematic design team:
Alan Lewis, advising professorDavid Demsey, TCC intern
Emilie Taylor, TCC intern
Carl Westerman, CCWIV Architects
Idea Village representatives:Miji ParkAlan Bell
www.ideavillage.org
Idea Villageupper ninth ward
The Tulane City Center, in partnership with CCWIV Architects, pro-vided schematic design services to Idea Village, a local non-profit organization with goals to support New Orleans entrepreneurs. The Idea Village acquired a building in the Ninth Ward to develop the first Business Innovation Center along the North Galvez Street commercial corridor. The Tulane City Center provided a site as-sessment and schematic design package and is now supporting CCWIV Architects in project implementation.
The North Galvez business center is scheduled for completion in the Spring of 2009.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, IDEA VILLAGE, HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
project team: Cordula Roser Gray, advising professor
Seth Welty, TCC research assistant
Located in the heart of New Orleans, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Neighborhood is in desperate need of extensive re-development in the post-Katrina era. One urgent issue is the development of infrastructure and resources that support a healthy food system and benefit the community through the availability of fresh foods, beautiful neighborhoods, and the promotion of a vibrant local economy. To implement some of these important incentives, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation (CHCDC) and the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (FFN) have partnered with the Tulane City Center to create the Hollygrove Growers Market & Farm (HGM&F), a storefront retail center in Hollygrove offering locally-grown, affordable fresh produce as well as ‘green jobs’ certification programs in urban agriculture.
A major component of the CHCDC’s revitalization and recovery work involves promoting sustainable living and healthy life-styles through support of local growers and accessibility of fresh regional and local produce for neighborhood residents. The com-munity food center will be a centerpiece for FFN’s food security recovery planning. Combined with the training farm, the HGM&F will contribute greatly to the revitalization of Hollygrove, serve as an important step in making the neighborhood sustainable and act as a catalyst for future city-wide innovation.
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HollygroveGrowers Pavilion
project team: Cordula Roser Gray
Sam RichardsEmilie Taylor
Dan Etheridge
Nels Erickson, Ian DanielsKerry Frech, Joseph Kimbrell
Dominic Lang, Kimberly LewisJoe Rodriguez, Jeff Schwartz
Located in the heart of New Orleans, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Neighborhood is in desperate need of extensive re-development in the post-Katrina era. One urgent issue is the development of infrastructure and resources that support a healthy food system and benefit the community through the availability of fresh foods, beautiful neighborhoods and the promotion of a vibrant local economy. To implement some of these important incentives, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation (CHCDC) and the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (FFN) have partnered with the Tulane City Center to create the Hollygrove Growers Market & Farm (HGM&F), a storefront retail center in Hollygrove offering locally-grown, affordable fresh produce as well as ‘green jobs’ certification programs in urban agriculture.
Tulane students are currently building the Hollygrove Growers Pavilion as a way to jump start the development of the entire Hollygrove Green Growers and Urban Farm master plan. Led by faculty members, the team will be working to design and build a structure which provides a shaded space for teaching while also serving as an example of environmentally conscious architecture. The pavilion will collect rainwater for use in the training gardens, will incorporate recycled content building materials, and has a focus on minimizing construction waste.
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Viet VillageUrban Farm
project team: Tulane City Center
Dan Etheridge, advising professorArt Terry, TCC intern
LSU school of Landscape Architecture:Elizabeth Mossop
Wes Michaels
Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation:
Father Vien Nguyen Peter Nguyen
University of Montana:Lauren ButzErika Edgley
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, MARY QUEEN OF VIETNAM COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, LSU DEPT. OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Dwyer Road at Palace St.
The Tulane City Center is working with Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation (MQVN) to develop a strat-egy for the implementation of a 28 acre urban farm and farmers market in the Village de L’Est neighborhood. TCC’s partners in the projects are the LSU School of Landscape Architecture and the University of Montana’s Environmental Studies program.The Vietnamese-American community in New Orleans East has maintained an extensive network of community gardens since their migration to the area from Vietnam in the 1970’s. These gardens produced food that was not readily available in the region and were used by the growers to feed their families. These gardens were destroyed by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina and the proposal the TCC has been working on constitutes a vision to re-establish these practices in a more formalized and developed setting.
In the initial proposal, the farm is designed to be sustainable both culturally and environmentally. Agricultural production is organic, energy is used efficiently, water is managed on site, and waste is recycled. The market is envisioned as a place that serves the local community and draws people from other neighborhoods of New Orleans and visitors from other cities. AWARDS: AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AWARD
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A team has been working with the community leaders at Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corp. to plan a 20-acre farm along the eastern border of New Orleans. Peter Nguyen, urban farm program manager with the development corpora-tion, approached Dan Etheridge, assistant director of Tulane City Center, for help due to Tulane’s track record of facilitating community partnerships and advancing community-based projects. Etheridge partnered with Tulane student Art Terry and faculty from the School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University to work on the farm plans, which include small-scale commercial farming, community garden plots, a chicken farm, a lagoon for water and a children’s play area. “They started talking about the type of trees they wanted to plant, so we knew they were happy with the basic plan,” reports Etheridge, who says the final step of this stage of Tulane’s involvement with the project is to prepare a 60-page booklet with all the details so the community can get started developing and raising funds. “People often talk about community gardens, but they don’t really get the scale of the project we are talking about with the Vietnamese community,” says Etheridge, who refers to the project specifically as an urban farm. The community has for years hosted an informal farmers’ market each Saturday morning in a parking lot where residents gather not only to buy and sell food but to maintain the rich cultural practices brought with their com-munity from Vietnam. As part of the expanded urban farm vision, the community is negotiating to obtain another eight acres to house a more formal market that will sell fresh produce, seafood, meat and cooked foods. Etheridge says he has been inspired by the commitment of the community to recover from Katrina stronger than before. He believes the market could one day be on the list of tourist attractions for people visiting the city and a regional resource for people along the Gulf Coast seeking the traditional foods of Vietnam. The land is on a flood plain, acknowledges Etheridge, but he believes the farm could be one of the first local resources to bounce back if the area is flooded again. “If that area floods then there will be water sitting on that land. There is not a whole lot we can do about thavt. But remember, floodplain agriculture is something that is practiced all over the world,” says Etheridge.
The Tulane City Center at the Tulane School of Architecture is helping make the urban farming dreams of New Or-leans’ Vietnamese community a reality.
Tulane Helps Community Build
an Urban Farm
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by Madeline Vann published in Tulane’s NewWave: December 13, 2007
Green Pavilionsustainable exhibition
project team: Coleman Coker, advising professor
Dan Etheridge, advising professorSeth Welty, TCC research assistant
Tom Holloman, BuildingstudioDavid Dieckhoff, Buildingstudio
Emilie Taylor, TCC
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, CITY PARK
City Park Botanical Gardens
The Tulane City Center and New Orleans’ City Park are working together on an Eco Pavilion to showcase environmentally sensi-tive building strategies and technologies. Under the guidance of architect Coleman Coker, the TCC team is building the pavilion for the Fall Home and Garden Show, 2008. City Park’s Botanical Gardens will use the Green Pavilion to provide the public with a full scale educational model of how sustainable technologies can employed.
The pavilion includes a rainwater catching roof, indigenous plants, salvaged materials, and rainwater filtration systems. The intention of this approachable and informative exhibition is to make these alternative building methods accessible to the public in the hope that individuals might choose to rebuild their homes and gardens in a more sustainable way. The Eco Pavilion is one project in a larger ongoing partnership between City Park and the TCC.
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T.R.E.E. Facility Upgrade
Situated along the Tchefuncta River outside Covington, on Lake Pontchartrain’s North Shore, Teaching Responsible Earth Educa-tion (T.R.E.E.) is an organization that provides curriculum-based environmental education to students in Orleans and adjoining Par-ishes. Under the instruction of Sue Brown, the executive director, and others, upwards of 50 students in grades 5 and 7 spend 4 to 5 days at T.R.E.E.’s 22.5 acre training ground engaged in activities used to foster wiser decisions on how to preserve the diversity of the natural world and live more lightly on our planet.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, T.R.E.E.
Box 14029 Highway 190Covington, LA 70435
Jon Tate, Advising ProfessorDan Etheridge, TCC support
Adriana Camacho, TCC intern
Sue E. and Robert L. Brown, T.R.E.E.
consultants:Ronny Carter
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation
John CamachoAlpha Engineering and Design Limited
Montana State UniversityBozeman, Montana
Built in the early 1900s, the facilities at T.R.E.E. have not been up-graded and therefore lack adequate services to accommodate the growing number of students entering the program. The scheme proposed by the Tulane team is to add a new 12-shower bath-house, completely renovate the septic system and specify water saving plumbing fixtures throughout. Specifically, a large cleans-ing pond will take the place of the existing field lines, providing for the students another teaching tool about natural processes. The bathhouse, a standalone building with a simple form, evokes similar qualities of the existing structures, though tweaked in this case to express raised floor plates required in this flood plane as well as the roof’s role in channeling rainwater for use in an entry-way didactic water garden.
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Skate Park atCity Park 2
Like much of New Orleans, City Park — one of the nation’s largest and oldest urban parks — must undergo extensive redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina. In order to embrace new cultures and sub-cultures, City Park has allotted a generous portion of open space to a new skating facility for use by both skateboarders and roller skaters alike.
To foster awareness and raise funds for this new facility, The Tu-lane City Center has been selected to provide imaging and ideas for the new proposal. TCC has teamed up with City Park and the New Orleans skateboarding and roller derby communities in order to create the most versatile and authentic facility. The desire for a leading skatepark in New Orleans has existed within the skating community for many years both pre-Katrina and post-Katrina. Now, with the addition of a roller derby track and supporting systems, this new skating facility has the potential to be one of the premiere parks in the nation, attracting multi-generational users and tourists to the city and the park, as well as facilitating City Park’s participation in the growing multi-billion dollar national skateboarding industry. By addressing the local skating com-munity’s needs and desires as well as gleaning inspiration from parks nationwide, the City Park skate facility has the potential to be competitive with some of the most successful skateparks and plazas across the nation.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, FIEVRE-JONES INC., CITY PARK
I-610 underpass at Golf drive
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Cornerstones Cornerstones is an effort to document and advocate for overlooked and threatened landmarks of New Orleans. Through a citywide survey of residents, Cornerstones will be the first ground-up ap-proach to identify New Orleans’ important historical and cultural sites and will broaden our ideas about the types of spaces that are important to our city and why they are significant to us.
project team: Bethany Rogers, Cornerstones
Rachel Breunlin, NSPHelen Jeurgens, TCC intern
Art Terry, TCC internSarah Cloonan, TCC intern
Jill Godfrey, TCC internSeth Welty, TCC research assistant
Through a partnership with the Neighborhood Story Project, we have developed a publication, Cornerstones: Celebrating the Ev-eryday Monuments and Gathering Places of New Orleans Neigh-borhoods that features seven local landmarks. Through interviews, site maps, architectural drawings, and photos, the Cornerstones project illustrates the range of ways neighborhood places are important to New Orleans. The survey form will be distributed as part of our book release events, so residents can nominate places that in a similar way are significant to their community.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, CORNERSTONES, NSP
The Tulane City Center has developed and maintains a public database and website of nominated cornerstones. The online registry features written narratives, interview quotes, maps, and architectural drawings, as well as noting any threats to the vitality of nominated places, so Cornerstones can document local signifi-cance and help protect the places that make New Orleans unique.
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Mapping New Orleans
historic & cultural places
After Hurricane Katrina, the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) undertook a historic resource survey of 40,000 of the buildings and structures that make up the City’s historic urban landscape. This survey produced over 160,000 geotagged photographic images, linked to data on building types, styles, details, ages, and other relevant information. In 2007, Tulane University funded a grant supporting a collaborative effort between the Historic District Landmarks Commission and the Tulane City Center to explore best practices and opportunities available through new technologies to manage this information for use by the HDLC and make it available to the public.
project team: Catherine Barrie
The City Center is currently working with city non-profit organiza-tions, the HDLC, and other interested groups to make this informa-tion and other data and images relevant to the preservation and enhancement of the historic, architectural, and cultural landscape of New Orleans. The data is available to the public though Google Earth, and provides a forum to allow citizens, visitors, and groups to add their voices about what sites are important to them.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, HISTORIC DISTRICT LANDMARKS COMMISSION
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The Alison Montana
AMIACTThe Alison Montana Institute of African American Art, Culture and Tradition (AMIACT) seeks to present, to document, to preserve and to celebrate the unique cultural heritage and street performance traditions of people of color, native to the City of New Orleans, such as the activities of Black Mardi Gras Indians, marching and “stepping” clubs, social aid and pleasure clubs, as well as neigh-borhood brass bands.
project team: Irene Keil, advising professor
Greg Barton, TCC internDan Kautz, TCC intern
Michael Keller, TCC intern
Consultant:Rachel Breunlin, NSP
The museum is named after the legendary Chief of Chiefs: the late Alison “Tootie” Montana. The Tulane City Center is partnering with the AMIACT to assist with research and to support fund-raising activities with the preparation of a brochure that, in addition to site and program studies, will show the history of the various cultural groups to be represented by the museum.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, AMIACT
(Dumaine at North Claiborne)
The future site of the AMIACT at Dumaine and North Claiborne Avenue is located in the historic Treme, one of the oldest urban African American neighborhoods in the country. This location has often been considered a highly charged place of international sig-nificance as a point of origin for countless genres of music, birth-place of uniquely New Orleans artists and cultural expressions, and the heart of Carnival in the African American community. It is the corner where Uptown and Downtown Mardi Gras Indian tribes meet.
Project Sprout
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, GREEN COAST ENT., GTECH STRATEGIES
pilot project:Jackson Street at Johnson
Project Sprout is a unique strategy for urban revitalization based on the premise that failure reveals opportunity. Shifts in New Orleans’ demographics and economic prospects, coupled with catastrophic flooding from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, left many of the city’s neighborhoods devastated by blight and environ-mental contamination. Through a productive stabilization strategy that unlocks the potential of blighted land, Sprout will transform marginal properties from public health threats into nodes of com-munity redevelopment.
Through the planting of bio-energy gardens that include plants like sunflowers, Project Sprout will:_Remediate soil_Yield a crop for bio-fuel production_Provide green-collar job training_Create hope in communities that suffer from the companion problems of blight and illegal dumping.
As a deliberately transitional strategy, Sprout helps to reposition underutilized land for redevelopment, urban farming, or commu-nity recreation space. A phased pilot project will roll out beginning in Spring 2009.
project team: Will Bradshaw, advising professor
New Orleans Food and Farm NetworkNew Orleans Revelopment Authority
Limitless Vistas, Inc.
www.projectsproutnola.com
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13085 Chef Menteur Highway
Community Health CenterNew Orleans East
With the mission to build a neighborhood-based Community Health Center for the medically underserved community of New Orleans East the Mary Queen of Viet Nam Community Develop-ment Corporation in partnership with the Tulane School of Medi-cine are working with the Tulane City Center. The project entails the design and renovation of an existing former post office build-ing within the neighborhood to be utilized as a comprehensive primary care center for the areas’ largely Vietnamese-American community. The current facility lacks to space to accommodate a community that is gradually returning to the neighborhood and continues to grow, especially with the influx of the Latino workforce. The first phase of the project includes the renovation of the existing building, while strategic visioning foresees a 10,000 square foot addition within three years.
The design of the project looks to take advantage of the unique opportunities presented by transforming the space of a former post office into a sustainably minded patient focused health clinic. Vietnamese patterns and landscape are used to add cultural specificity to the project while staying inclusive to all community members.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, TULANE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, MQVNCDC
project team: Thaddeus Zarse, project lead
Scott Berger, TCC intern Joseph Keppel, TCC intern Rebecca Miller, TCC intern
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PriestleyPartnership
project team: Marilyn Feldmeier, coordinator
Dan Etheridge, TCC supportScott Bernhard, TCC support
Collaborators:Michelle Biagas, Principal,
CEO Priestley Charter SchoolJared Hueter, Dean of Design Programs
www.priestleycharterschool.org
The inaugural lecture series of five lectures was launched in the fall of 2008 to open discussion and present aspects of design education between the faculty of the Priestley school and faculty of TSA. As part of the continuing support of curriculum develop-ment, the TCC, along with Louisiana AIA, provided financial assis-tance for a fact-finding visit to Philadelphia’s Charter High School of Art and Design (CHAD) to learn firsthand from the nation’s earliest architecture-focused charter high school. In the spring of 2009, through TCC sponsorship, student at TSA and Priestley had an opportunity to work together on a competition for modular classrooms as part of the partnership’s aim to foster student inter-action and student exposure to the design fields. Select Priestly juniors have been invited to participate in Tulane’s summer design school, Career Explorations in Architecture.
The Tulane City Center and the Priestley Charter School of Architecture and Construction partnership provides support for curriculum development, a lecture series for faculty enrichment, and opportunities for Priestley High School and Tulane School of Architecture students to collaborate.
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Classroom Competition
The Tulane City Center and the Priestley School of Architecture and Construction have teamed up with modular manufacturer Mor-gan Building Systems to design a sustainable modular classroom. The spring 2009 classroom design collaboration is part of the Open Architecture Network’s Classroom Competition. The compe-tition requires designers to work with school students to develop proposals for improved learning environments which will respond to the growing demand worldwide for classroom structures.
Priestly student team:Manuel, Rachel, Abdul, Rashid, Dennis
Anisa Baldwin Metzger, USGBCTiffany DelCour,
Tulane School of Public Health
http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org
Using Priestly’s schoolyard as a site, the design team of high school and university students have developed not just a classroom design but a business proposal for Morgan. The team worked with design and engineering staff at MBS to develop a proposal that fits with the requirements of their production facili-ties and that we hope can be incorporated into their production line at the end of the process. MBS is specifically focused on exploring ways to develop a ‘green’ classroom building utilizing the company’s existing manufacturing processes.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, PRIESTLY, MORGAN BUILDINGS, USGBC
Partners from the US Green Building Council, Tulane’s Freeman School of Business, and the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine collaborated with the design team on their multidisciplinary approach to creating better learning spaces.
TCC Street Front Gallery
The Tulane City Center Street Front Gallery is a new space dedi-cated to public dialogues about the future of our city. The space consists of three display windows on the ground floor of an old commercial building in New Orleans CBD (corner of Magazine and Gravier Streets). Each of the windows will showcase projects engaged by the Tulane City Center in partnership with local com-munity based organizations, and other urban, landscape, and architectural design projects that engage our future in a meaning-ful and progressive way.
The gallery is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can be viewed from the sidewalk in front of the display windows. We hope that our curated exhibitions will encourage people to think about the future of New Orleans in new and productive ways. project team:
Scott Bernhard, TCC directorDan Etheridge, TCC associate director
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, TULANE/XAVIER CENTER FOR BIO-ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
Magazine Street at Gravier
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How High?Thoughts About
Elevating Your Home
How High?: Thoughts about Elevating Your Home is a publication of the Tulane City Center. This publication is intended to be used as a reference guide for people considering elevating their home in the New Orleans/Gulf Coast region. In the booklet are primary design issues associated with raising homes, both existing and new structures. This publication is a result of a great need but lack of information in the region about flood preventative measures for home owners. The booklet includes a general discussion of the issues and utilizes case studies from the region to illustrate best practices for elevated living. Issues addressed include the effects of elevating a home in terms of access, useable space under the house, and the effects of a raised home on a city block and a larger neighborhood context.
project team: Dan Etheridge
Ali PopperScott Bernhard
Emilie Taylor
The booklet was produced with the support and technical as-sistance of the Louisiana State University Ag Center and CHART at the University of New Orleans.
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, LSU AG CENTER, CHART
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Hope Haven& Cafe Hope
The Tulane City Center partnered with Catholic Charities to develop a programmatic strategy for Madonna Manor building located at the Hope Haven Campus. The project integrates three community based programs (Jefferson Parish Care Center, Café Hope and Hope Haven Farm) in one cohesive plan to help revital-ize and reactivate the Campus.
Jefferson Care Center will provide temporary shelter for home-less people and programs to reintegrate families in the com-munity. Café’ Hope will be a fully operational service restaurant and will run as a social entrepreneurship business model that will offer job skills for at risk youth. Hope Haven Farm will develop a sustainable biodiversity farming model to support the Café’ and to promote initiatives to produce and buy local products. The Farm and café’ will act as a collaborative platform for the community to help revitalize the iconic Westbank architectural landmark. The City Center is involved in the schematic design of Café’ Hope, and is working with all of the project’s collaborators to devise a site stragegy and strategic goals to make the project a reality.
Project Team :Marcella Del Signore, advising prof
Kristian Mizes, TCC intern Jason Liu, TCC intern
Thomas J. Bogan, TCC intern
TCC consultants:Pierre Stouse, Structural Consultant Mike Ducote, Electrical Consultant
Chuck Sardi, Mechanical Consultant
PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS: TCC, CATHOLIC CHARITIES ARCHDIOCESE NOLA
1108 Barataria Blvd, Marrero
TCC
who we areand what we do
As the primary venue for outreach projects at the Tulane School of Architecture , the Tulane City Center, along with our principal col-laborator the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, enjoys a broad range of partnerships with numerous off campus community based and civic organizations. Each of these partner-ships provides opportunities for faculty and students to engage real issues in real communities and participate in the life of our city. Projects we have been involved with in the past have ranged in scale from small mobile neighborhood communication devices to urban scale neighborhood planning processes. We work in the realm of both private and public spaces and always recognize the importance of thinking beyond the scale at which a given project is expressed. Our Programs and Projects include:University|Community Design PartnershipsURBANbuildCITYbuild Consortium of SchoolsGREENbuildApplied ReserachEvents
Scott Bernhard Director of the Tulane City Center
Dan EtheridgeAssociate Director
Emilie Taylor Senior Program Coordinator
Tulane City Center
how to engage
As an outreach organization devoted to creative investigation of com-plex urban issues we are committed to a wide range of relationships and are eager to facilitate connections between those with skills and support to offer and those who can make use of such help. The Tulane City Center has expertise in projects ranging from street furniture, through single-family house design/build, to large-scale urban and even regional design. We work principally with community organiza-tions, institutional clients and other non-profit entities. We support the needs of individuals through our collaboration with Neighborhood Housing Services and the Design Build Center.
It is important to note we do not compete for work with professional ar-chitectural or design firms, instead we intend to demonstrate the value of good design in venues not often touched by standard models of professional practice, and in so doing, support the growth of the design sector in our communities. Functioning as a not-for-profit organization, the TCC maintains the complimentary goals of progressive design and applied research excellence, and advocacy for a better quality of life for all people.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for information about any of the work we have completed, or to discuss possible collaboration on future projects. As a grant funded center we also welcome the opportunity to speak with any persons/organizations interested in supporting our work.
for more information visitwww.tulanecitycenter.org
