Archinect - News

Trahan Architects adds 25 years and a slate of new improvements to New Orleans' historic Superdome

2024-11-06T15:29:00-05:00

With the upcoming 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on the horizon for 2025, the new interior renovations by Trahan Architects to one of its tragic epicenters—the historic Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana—is an important project to highlight following the completion of work in September of this year.

The extension of an initial engagement, which began in the immediate aftermath of the storm, the latest commission authored a full interior renovation meant to improve accessibility, the fan experience, wayfinding, operational efficiency, and the team facilities for the city’s beloved New Orleans Saints NFL franchise.

Image © Tim Hursley

The project, which was carried out in phases from 2020 on until the start of this year's football season, reconfigures perimeter concessions areas while installing a series of new atrium volumes that ease the speed of access to upper-level guest suites.

Image © Tim Hursley

"The ingenuity of the original design enabled us to think beyond ...

EskewDumezRipple’s latest job opening highlights the role of contracts and codes in construction

2024-02-01T08:34:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Project Manager at Fluidity Design Consultants, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Construction Contract Administrator at EskewDumezRipple.

The role, based in New Orleans, calls for an individual with an “intimate knowledge and thorough understanding of AIA Construction Contracts and requirements, applicable codes, schedule monitoring and an understanding of materials, methods, and processes of commercial construction.” Among the responsibilities for the role will be to understand and enforce the contractual obligations of all parties in the construction process, promote and ensure the design intent during the construction process, and ensure that all potentially legal and contractual matters are addressed efficiently and promptly.

Louisiana State and NASA to develop waterless concrete for 3D printing on the Moon

2023-12-14T12:06:00-05:00

Louisiana State University is collaborating with NASA on a project investigating the potential for natural materials on the Moon to be used as 3D printed waterless concrete. The research is part of a wider mission to develop feasible robotic construction technologies that can support the building of long-term settlements on the Lunar surface, including habitats, landing pads, and radiation shields.

The research is a partnership between LSU Construction Management Assistant Professor Ali Kazemian alongside scientists Michael Fiske and Jennifer Edmunson from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Together, the team will investigate how raw materials already available on the Moon and Mars, namely sulfur and regolith, can be used to develop 3D printed waterless concrete.

Related on Archinect: ICON to work with DARPA on a framework for Lunar architecture. Image credit: BIG

Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the team will study the performance and limits ...

EskewDumezRipple uses musical instruments and AI as inspiration for their Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience Museum design

2023-10-20T11:47:00-04:00

EskewDumezRipple has unveiled its design for the Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience Museum in New Orleans. The 120,000-square-foot project is intended as a “venue to showcase and highlight the contributions that the city of New Orleans has made to the music industry.”

Image credit: EskewDumezRipple

Located opposite the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the museum seeks to consolidate a complete view of music from several smaller museums spread across the state and region. The concept design of the scheme is inspired by music and musical instruments, with an outer shell drawing inspiration from the hollowed body of a guitar.

Meanwhile, the outlines and silhouettes of various instruments including violins, guitars, and brass pieces, are conveyed through “sinuous and flowing lines” in specific elements and building details.

Image credit: EskewDumezRipple

AI tools such as Midjourney were used during the design...

EskewDumezRipple designs Baton Rouge’s Burden Welcome Center as a ‘retreat to nature’

2023-08-09T11:21:00-04:00

EskewDumezRipple has released images of their newly-designed Burden Welcome Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Located adjacent to the city’s Botanic Gardens, Rural Life Museum, and the LSU AgCenter, the 9,230-square-foot center is intended to “provide visitors with an overview of the many destinations dispersed throughout the 440-acre property in the heart of Louisiana’s capital city.”

Image credit: EskewDumezRipple

Described by the team as a “contemplative retreat to nature,” the center incorporates a series of glass walls on the far side of the entryway to capture views of the surrounding scenery. The design also features a 7,200-square-foot open-air central courtyard wrapped by a sheltered outdoor space.

Image credit: EskewDumezRipple

Inside, the center will hold 3,000 square feet of multi-purpose space, 1,000 square feet of gallery space, an occupiable green roof, a small dining area and café, a gift shop, visitor restrooms, and offices for botanic gardens administrative staff.

Im...

Modular bridge reconnects critical route for Louisiana community hit by Hurricane Ida

2021-12-22T15:59:00-05:00

An international bridge engineering and supply company by the name of Acrow has recently supplied a modular steel bridge to temporarily replace a bridge that was destroyed during Hurricane Ida in Louisiana.

When the hurricane hit the country on August 29th, the Category 4 storm caused widespread damage to infrastructure across the northern Gulf Coast and beyond, including a vital bridge that provided passage between the communities of Lafitte and Barataria in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

As stated in Acrow’s press releases, the 400 residents of Barataria became isolated as their only vehicular bridge to the mainland was destroyed. In response, the Louisiana National Guard installed a temporary floating bridge to enable access for first responders and residents, however, it could only support a single lane of traffic. A larger, longer-term temporary bridge was needed to meet the needs of the community’s residents.

Previously on Archinect: Mayhem in New York City and across the Nort...

New Orleans' $14.5 billion levee system seems to have worked against Hurricane Ida

2021-08-30T15:45:00-04:00

The $14.5 billion flood-protection system built around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina seems to have succeeded at keeping the city from going underwater again.

The abject failure of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina was the primary cause of the devastation that eventually cost the city a minimum of 1,800 lives and over $81 billion in property damage. Ida represents the first test of the system since it was completed in 2018.

The levees were thought to have an abbreviated shelf-life thanks to rising sea levels that would require significant upgrades within the next four years. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-led project was one of the largest infrastructure builds in history next to the Hoover Dam and Erie Canal.

Meanwhile, a protested new natural gas power plant south of Lake Pontchartrain that was supposed to protect the city’s electrical system has failed. The storm was so powerful it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River. The New York Times has more on the performance of the multibillion-dollar levee system here.

Hidden cartographies: the vanishing graves of the enslaved in Death Alley, Louisiana

2021-06-29T17:30:00-04:00

The London-based research group, Forensic Architecture (FA), published a new project on Monday, June 28, called “Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana,” which was featured by the New York Times.

A short documentary on the Times website tells the story of the fight to identify and preserve the graves of enslaved people in Louisiana’s Death Alley, also known as Cancer Alley. Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the area along the Mississippi River is known for its deadly concentration of polluting petrochemical facilities, which have led to high rates of cancer in the local, majority-Black population. According to advocates, identifying and preserving these burial sites is a way to memorialize the enslaved Black people who built Louisiana’s economy; it also raises awareness of the connection between current day structural racism and the history of capitalist development. Helping to identify and visualize the extent of these sites, FA mobilizes the architect’s tools in suppor...

Likely increase in Louisiana construction jobs following destructive hurricanes

2020-11-04T10:35:00-05:00

After three hurricanes made landfall in Louisiana over the past few weeks efforts to recover after the storms may boost the state's otherwise bleak jobs market.

According to The Advocate, "Hurricane Zeta made landfall in Louisiana just three weeks after Hurricane Delta and roughly nine weeks after Hurricane Laura. Combined, the storms were estimated to have caused more than $10 billion in damages."

With efforts arising to rebuild, various regions throughout the state are experiencing some growth in temporary construction jobs, Kristen Mosbrucker writes for The Advocate.

America's first "climate refugees" head for higher ground

2016-05-03T13:33:00-04:00

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems. One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles, is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change.

"The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees."

Precisely determining who qualifies as a "climate refugee" is a notoriously difficult challenge. While the UN Refugee Agency estimates 22 million people were displaced by "disasters brought on by natural hazard events," evidence linking, for example, the civil war raging in Syria and Iraq with a prolonged drought would up that number.

In short, it's difficult to clearly isolate environmental factors, which tend to happen on large temporal and geographic scales, from sociopolitical causes of mass displacement, which are often more visible.

In any case, while a sizable chunk of the American government still doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change, its citizens are already being displaced because of its effects....

New Orleans deliberates how to dismantle statues of U.S. Confederate figures

2015-08-18T09:36:00-04:00

The question of the monuments’ removal comes after several US states...have withdrawn the Confederate flag, acknowledging it as a symbol of racial hate...The [statues] are on public land 'which means that African American tax money is being used to maintain them', [says Carol Bebelle, co-chair of the Mayor’s committee for racial reconciliation]. 'What does it mean to be a city that pays tribute to part of its history that was about oppressing the major portion of its population?'

New Orleans public housing 10 years after Hurricane Katrina

2015-06-22T20:39:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development embraced the trapezoid, dubbed Iberville-Treme, along with an exhaustive New Orleans plan that called for 2,314 apartments constructed within 54 months. Yet after 48 months — four years — the work in New Orleans is far from done. If construction continues at the same pace in coming years, the promised 2,314 apartments won’t be complete until 2026.

Building the First Slavery Museum in America

2015-03-02T13:03:00-05:00

Built largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney [Plantation] had been turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery — the first of its kind in the United States. Located on land where slaves worked for more than a century, in a state where the sight of the Confederate flag is not uncommon, the results are both educational and visceral.

Trahan Architects Release Short Film of Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum

2015-02-24T13:35:00-05:00

Spirit of Space, in collaboration with Trahan Architects, has created a short film featuring the award-winning design of the Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The museum was recently awarded the prestigious 2015 AIA Institute Honor Award and will be honored at the upcoming AIA National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

From Spirit of Space:

The Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum, designed by Trahan Architects, evokes the past as much as it signals the future. Set in the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, the museum employs 21st century technology to execute a design language inspired by the carving and scouring of the nearby Cane River and the historic architecture of Natchitoches.

The film carries viewers past the historic district's references, around the pleated copper façade and into the sculpted interior. The cast stone panels define a fluid pathway that flows around, up and through th...

International architecture star Shigeru Ban is a Prospect.3 no show

2014-11-11T14:40:00-05:00

Internationally renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is one of the biggest names on the roster of New Orleans' international art festival, Prospect.3. But his exhibit at Longue Vue House and Gardens is a non-starter. [...] Unfortunately, whatever plans Ban had for presenting a structure or artwork at Prospect.3 must have fallen through, because the exhibit at Longue Vue is comprised of nothing more than a sleepy selection of miniature architectural models and photos.

Louisiana is Disappearing into the Sea

2014-10-29T13:23:00-04:00

The US state of Louisiana is slowly disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico as its fragile wetlands are eroded by rising sea levels. Approximately 75 square kilometres are lost each year and the US Geological Survey has warned that the entire habitat - which represents 40% of all wetlands in the US - could be destroyed within 200 years. The loss is partly down to natural evolutionary processes, but experts say human behaviour... has made the region more vulnerable to storm surges.

Olafur Eliasson turns Louisiana MoMA into a 'Riverbed'

2014-08-19T14:04:00-04:00

Olafur Eliasson has tried something else. For his latest site-specific project, which opens on 20 August, the artist has transformed the entire south wing of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark into a convincing riverbed – a messy, stony accumulation of sedimentary rock and watery channels that threatens to silt up the white space of the gallery entirely. The result is an uncanny collision of manmade and natural views, and a Sublime reminder of the slow power of nature to erode [...].

Winners of the 2014 Great Places Awards to be exhibited at EDRA Conference, New Orleans

2014-05-19T20:11:00-04:00

The annual Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Great Places Awards highlight the invaluable relationship between people and their experience with physical space. For its 2014 program, EDRA chose six winning projects that exemplify professional and scholarly excellence in environmental and experiential design.

2014 Place Design Award: Masoro Village Project by GA Collaborative

2014 Place Design Award: Open House by Matthew Mazzotta

2014 Place Design Award: Sugar Beach by Claude Cormier et Associés

2014 Place Planning Award: Pike-Pine Renaissance by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol

2014 Place Research Award: Green Alley Demonstration Project by City of Austin, The University of Texas Center for Sustainable Development, the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation, and Austin Community Design and Development Center

2014 Place Book Award: The Street: A Quintessential Social Public Space by Vikas Mehta

For project details, head over to Bustler.

Eskew+Dumez+Ripple honored with 2014 AIA Architecture Firm Award

2013-12-13T12:58:00-05:00

Eskew+Dumez+Ripple was selected by the AIA Board of Directors to receive the 2014 AIA Architecture Firm Award. The AIA gives the award every year to a firm that has consistently created distinguished architecture for at least 10 years.

Founded less than 25 years ago by Allen Eskew, FAIA, Steven Dumez, FAIA, and Mark Ripple, AIA, the New Orleans-based firm has become recognized for their deep involvement in rebuilding the Hurricane Katrina-stricken city as well as their commitment to mentorship -- for which they received two AIA National Intern Development Program (IDP) Firm Awards.

EDR is receiving the honor at a bittersweet time with the passing of principal Allen Eskew earlier this week.

You can read more about EDR below:

"Just eight years ago, when the city was struck by Hurricane Katrina, EDR had 22 employees, but has since nearly doubled and has taken on an important role as civic leaders charged with repairing the wounded urban fabric of the city. Their efforts, like...

A lost generation?

2011-04-20T12:35:17-04:00

Trey Trahan, principal of Trahan Architects, worries that architects who leave the industry for a period of time might struggle to keep up with technological advances in their field.

Business Report.com discusses the ongoing effects of the economic crisis for architects and others involved in the construction industries.

"There's a huge gap right now between older and younger architects," he says. "That middle group—the one that would take over the leadership of firms—just isn't there. There aren't as many of them around."