I hear that the fishing is so good Bush has already made a couple of return trips.

the netherlands did well with their 'polder'-inspired planning program over the last decade or so. similar situation? maybe a new canal city?

my memory is that water management, while their were pumps, etc. (supposedly designed by latrobe, so from the 18th c!) in the new orleans system was sort of passive/reactive where the netherlands seems to have a more aggressive/continuous program of managing the flood. (that could merely be my perception of living in n.o. and a general passivity, but byron's comments last week feel the same.)

interesting also: the theme for the rotterdam biennale directed by west 8's adriaan geuze this year was 'the flood'. maybe some ideas there?

Hi

"Build higher and stronger" ---- well it would be better to build different ,learn from experience and create those new jobs in a new architecture with new visions and build so that there are something to rebuild.
What I mean is that it that if there are a core steel structure the rest are easy to rebuild but if everything are just rebuild as how it was ,then nothing are learned.

Homes designed on a flood plain will always be suseptable to flood risk.
Something above the ground would be good, but less likely to be hurricane proof.

Steven - my recollection of the pumping system in New Orleans is that the pumps move millions of gallons of water every day - regardless of the weather. I think/thought it was more pro-active than your description.

I'm still shocked at all of the events in the city these past few weeks. Though I feel very strongly that the city will thrive, without actually being there to see the effects, I'm not able to say how I'd approach the rebuilding effort.

I really like the idea of looking to the Netherlands. I dunno why that didn't pop into my head first.

Just think, windmills throughout the Bayou..even making electricity. Wait, does La get wind? Oh yeah, they just had a hurricane. Yeah, OK.

Building houses on stilts will only save the house. To save the people inside you'd need to equip every house on stilts with a boat.

...or connect every house with elevated walkways. then it would be like, oh my, a mat building!

While no building is totally hurricane-proof, bldgs on stilts can perform much better in such situations than 'traditional' construction. Stilt construction along coastal areas is used more for wind than for flooding.

Houses on stilts would have to deal with some pretty severe wind loads. Aren't hurricane winds largely updrafts?

BOATMOBILES! Come on, no time like the present to explore a classic!

Somebody said "build higher and stronger," but you have to remember that New Orleans was essentially built on top of pudding. Although there are a couple of tall buildings there, like the Plaza Tower and Shell One Square, for the most part, it is very difficult to build a tall structure in NOLA. I kinda like the stilted house consept, and I think it would be cool if the city could actually be underwater perminatly and we could get around in boatmobiles. I mean, its a little reminicent of Wright's gyrocopter, but it would be a very different (and nifty) form of planning. But making the stilited houses stand up against harshe waves and currents would be the trick.

"Somebody said "build higher and stronger,""

unfortunately, I believe our president said that

Maybe it's finally time to make this come true...

A non-archt buddy of mine jokingly said that we might look to Venice for inspiration - maybe there's some merit to that. Maybe even 'Stilt-City' (or is it 'Stiltsville?") in Miami has some answers.

Somebody who works more w/ stilt construction should address the reasoning behind builsing on stilts in modern coastal construction. I recall some of why, which I remember as being mainly for wind. Plus...I've actually gotta git back to work....

bryan4arch I was thinking similarly, Archigram's "Walking City"
http://www.archigram.net/projects_pages/walking_city.html

Hi
What would it cost, to have all houses build on a grid of reinforced square cells ? Would a ditch full of old metal scrap and concrete 8 way's to next house each direction ?
Difficult to grasp --- well a mesh of reinforced concrete, to place right angled walls for ground floors with a super strong top floor . Placed and ancored to a grid of vaste reinforce concrete or if steel price are realy that low, a genuine strong 200 feet mesh to begin with, how much more ancoring do a house need than these ?

If it is an intire city, a grid of ditches as original shapes is no great expense, what will one ditch full of concrete cost nothing, compared what such grid will provide of realising, that walls must be able to go and houses on poles work fine. Wind pass bothunder and above so the roof don't go of that easy.

--------Guess you realise I talk 3D-H ;))

Anyway that would make sense with a grid.

Anyway calculating a box underneath a house and calculate it as being a ships hull floating in mud is acturly possible , still this mean calculating building mass and intire weight. Emagine it as the boat hulls is just in earth instead of water , calculated to just float the exact mass. A different shape hull than one in water but what would it matter it would be burid and away --- even avaible as shelter if made in 3D-H ;))

Gotta be a buch of old unused barges hanging around the Miss river to use. Why not, while there's still water downtown, flot 'em in, fill 'em w/ 'Foam', set 'em in place, let the water drain. dry our them bury em w/ topsoil. That oughta help the mud issue, albeit kinda on the inelegant side & probably opens new boxes of worms.

Hi digging deep diches and filling them with concrete and vaste iron , old cars ,eteel rods ,metal scrap make a mesh of ditches and have square land inbetween , earth that you can dig out and cast a deck to cover if you start from top, you could end up with an intire floating city, without barges, just by casting upside down boxes with the top closed .
But why all the trouble, just do them in 3D-H ,ancor them with each their ovn grid --- maby with a few covered cubes as described, just to make stability ?

per, MM: interesting ideas

in regards to 'rebuilt' cities....

warsaw is definitely one to examine. after total demolition in ww2, it was rebuilt almost exactly the same way using photographs, drawings, and memories. While there was a positive attitude involved in their decision to replicate the old (and much of the town helped), they perhaps missed out on an oppurtunity to comment on the infrastructure that was set up centuries before hand.

In hindsight, the rebuilt part of town has become largely touristic, and has lost the feel that the original had. Much like if they rebuilt the trade center exaclty the same, we (architects) would think it was a missed oppurtunity, but that wouldnt keep it from becoming a tourist attraction.

The solution is perhaps somewhere in between a revival and a complete renovation.

what is a building that can be de-anchored? how would infrastructure that makes this possible have to be different?

Hi
With the space program you would emagine each square foot measured and rendered in 3D, now that would make a blueprint for a rebuild , it also could finaly make digital and CAD ,work with other things than presentations and icons, maby make it make use building houses and places , now that wouldn't be a challance within this board would it ?
You would all be able to do that just like that right ?

Would you --- na painting are for women and lazy men digital are for designers right ?

hey PER,
I'm gonna ask a really dumb question, but when you talk abt. 3D-H, is that a virtual reality/3D software program? I'm kinda embarrassed to ask, but not being in the virtual world yet, I've gotta be the guy asking.

Hi
"what is a building that can be de-anchored? how would infrastructure that makes this possible have to be different?"

It didn't need to be, architecture are here to serve not to demand. Case anyone forgot.

PER:

I always understood 3D-H as the idea of using a software application that calculates / generates 3 dimensional honeycomb structures from complex 3D geometries... A theoretically cost-effective way of deisgning / building that uses computers to very quickly convert massing models into 3D structures buildable from flat plate materials, computer cut to assemble in grid patterns? Similar to the ribs of a ship?

Per:

"what is a building that can be de-anchored? how would infrastructure that makes this possible have to be different?"

It didn't need to be, architecture are here to serve not to demand. Case anyone forgot.But lets consider theoretically the question. For example, one of the problems in the face of a crisis like Katrina is loss of infrastructure. What if we eliminated our normal ideas of the energy grid? What if transportation were not grounded on asphalt? What if water sources, waste disposal, and sewage were not centralized? Or what if energy and infrastructural grid were "plug and play"? Or if an entire city were "wireless"? Or if emergency food and water stores were not dependent on roads?

Solar power has never been thought to be cost effective because at the current volume of production of solar panels, it costs more energy to manufacture a solar cell than the cell can itself hope to produce. However, if you think about the long run in the face of this type of disaster, would it be better for individual buildings to supply alot of their own power? Solar power is more feasible if you manufacture in large quantities... imagine an entire city... There are also passive ventilation and lighting possibilities, even waste disposal, that would make buildings more energy independent...

Maybe green design strategies would be quite prudent here... There are those who would argue that our modern world has a tendency to have a blind faith in over-engineered solutions that work against nature rather than with nature, that are not only extremely expensive, but can lead to catastrophies... The three gorges dam in china for example... People have a tendency to be entrenched in the same old ways of building, even when environmental contexts are so different... Maybe building "flexible and more liquid" is smarter than building "higher and stronger"...?

in the 1850s chicago installed sewers by laying the pipes directly on the existing streets and then jacking everything up to a new grade. they used fill to lift the grade of the city. block by block. i bet there's a lot of fill material in lake ponchartrain.

http://www.chipublib.org/digital/sewers/history2.html

One thing is certain to me: If we (meaning architects, planners,etc) don't successfully push these ideas, I fear that we're gonna see New Orleans rebuilt as the standard US subdivisions & gated 'compounds''.

indeed.

what gets me is that: there is MONEY to be made with building better. george pullman (he of railcar fame) made his initial fortune by jacking up buildings with jackscrews.

And ------- ok I then say it, maby it is not a problem that so many chinese maby want a car, maby we all will realise that car design will change --- I would welcome smaller more smart cars, I would find it more exiting if the engine only needed to be 3 Hp , realy don't you think that when they become cheap enough ,that it is better having that then nothing ?

But these things will change when we start realising the potential in real digital production . Please I don't try make my pony better than it is, but when there are something left, say a few main structure walls, it _is_ easier to emagine a rebuild ; the way crafts develobed or rather the sad reson why cheap materials and ,sorry to say so, dead-end develobment from my point of view, make it more relevant than ever to realise, that with new visions and new challances there are a way out. --- and this also mean cheaper houses beside if you want a lasting effect, even new jobs after the rebuild.
The experience from the tsunami show that the walls shuld run with the direction you suppose the water will go you see this in many newbuild houses allready --- if you don't know where the water will float I guess you need to make two structures so one can go, and the second will still hold, or simply build on poles, if the houses float away , you must make sure the basic structure are iron fest , --- but you need new methods to do this possible, you need to build different.

--- all I am saying is that if you look at a building, as a structure and a paneling ,then you can chose to make the structure stronger.
Doing it with new materials or new methods shuld drop the costs, spend more on the basic strong structure and you work with a more flexible aproach.

Now again you think I promote my pony , I do but please reconise, that I know how you build a house, how your houses are build why you think this is so good, and what I allway's been up against. We all will end up spending more quality time that's my best vision, we need to use these events to fullfill the challance , that's rebuilding and learning just a few new tricks --- one would be to use architecture doing capasity housing and nice inviroments instead of just Icons, that change in perception will make a difference , ------- My challance often is to try combine the crafts the materials but , this ask that you realise that there are only one way and that one is digital ,nomatter how hippievise you want it to work you need to focus on the future and the actural promising results of this digital thing , you don't build a future by just rebuilding waiting for it to tumble once again , ,you rebuild the nice things and make the bad things better is it so difficult ?

Now you know I have to response like this and I would like to be able to ansver your main question, but I allready did ; make it a grid, make the grid smaller for each space, but one thing I can ansver is that you are right that just building high will not do it , you both need to build high and strong , you can keep your designs , but they shuld be made with another aproach toverds the structural context. Jee --- do you know how it hurt to see some of today's timber houses being a craftman , how both materials and tools are mistreaded and how you fight the materials and forms , instead of mastering the damned matter by doing it in a way, where you do not fight the nature but is smart do it with actural avaible tools.

"Flexible and more liquid" --- perhaps but first of all in a way where if the house burn then there still will be a basic steel structure, if flodded there still be a basic structure, that structure very well could be a grid of concrete anchors a flexible or partvise rigid structure ,but one you know the exact measures of. Sorry this is my best ansver unless you want it in graphic.

That settles it. The levees shall be constructed from ponies!

i think seattle's sewer system was built similarly, the grade of the city basically built up one storey... i think it was built that way after a mud slide or something, not sure