Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Students at several Central City schools soon will have a permanent place to learn about architecture, design and city planning after officials from PlayBuild, a nonprofit focused on architecture education, broke ground Tuesday on a “design playground” in New Orleans.
The 2-year-old organization, along with Palmisano Contractors, is converting a vacant lot at Thalia and Willow streets into a space for children to play and learn.
— theneworleansadvocate.com
Learn more about Playbuild NOLA (or find ways to get involved) here. View full entry
You can't see it now among the overgrown cart paths and weed-choked lagoons but a championship golf course will soon rise in City Park [...] City Park's long-awaited, oft-delayed $24.5 million golf complex finally broke ground and will one day be a boon for the local golf community. — NOLA.com
Jeff Duncan of The Times-Picayune gushes over the slated-development and its 7,300-yard Rees Jones-designed course. Boasting "a new clubhouse, driving range and practice facility," project-designers hope it will attract the attention of the Zurich Classic. But not everyone is happy about the... View full entry
New Orleans is a city perfectly designed to warp time. [...]
In New Orleans, the city itself has responded to an unusual ecology, geography and relationship with randomness. What’s come out on the other side is something more akin to cobbling than calculation. And it has the effect of accordioning the way a given minute feels here.
— Re:form
h/t Citylab View full entry
August Perez III had an incredible impact on the way New Orleans looks today, from its skyline to Mardi Gras. Perez, one of the city's most important architects of the 20th century, passed away last week at the age of 81.[...]
Taking over his father's architecture firm in 1975, Perez quickly made his mark on postmodern architecture, teaming up with Charles Moore to design the Piazza D'Italia in 1978. The public plaza [...]remains one of the most defining pieces of postmodern design to this day.
— citylab.com
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.
— nola.com
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. — BBC
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.
— bustler.net
2014 Place Design Award: Masoro Village Project by GA Collaborative2014 Place Design Award: Open House by Matthew Mazzotta2014 Place Design Award: Sugar Beach by Claude Cormier et Associés2014 Place Planning Award: Pike-Pine Renaissance by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol2014 Place Research Award: Green... View full entry
With billions in federal, charity and insurance dollars flowing in after [Hurricane Katrina], there were suddenly resources for change.
“The city essentially got the opportunity to do a do-over,” said Carol Bebelle, a lifelong New Orleanian and executive director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center. [...]
In many ways, it was a top-to-bottom re-imagining of the cityscape.
So, is the city in a better place than it was nearly nine years ago? It depends on how closely you look.
— equalvoiceforfamilies.org
The plan’s backers say it represents a rare chance at economic revitalization for the neighborhood. Its opponents say it would destroy the fabric of Holy Cross, and might represent the first step toward changing the traditionally low-rise New Orleans waterfront into something very different [...]
“The argument is that the Lower Ninth Ward has to take what it can get,” says DeBacher. “We believe that we deserve—as any community deserves—good development, not just any development.”
— The Atlantic Cities
Actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, which has built 100 energy-efficient new homes in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward, is considering legal action against the manufacturer of an innovative glass-infused wood that was used in some of the homes’ outdoor steps and front porches. The wood has begun rotting, despite being guaranteed for 40 years, a Make It Right spokeswoman said. — theneworleansadvocate.com
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... View full entry
The winners of the "Designing Recovery" competition were announced earlier this month. Hosted by the AIA in partnership with Make It Right, St. Bernard Project, Architecture for Humanity and Dow Building Solutions, participants designed disaster-relief houses to aid survivors of recent natural disasters in New York City, New Orleans, and Joplin, MO.
Although there were only three competition winners, all entries that can be easily constructed will be built in these three communities.
— bustler.net
The winning proposals are: Resilient House by Sustainable.TO Architecture + Building for New York Shotgun [remix] by GOATstudio LLP for New Orleans CORE House by Q4 Architects for Joplin View full entry
More than 25 high school students from across New Orleans, most of whom had never met an architect, recently took part in the inaugural Project Pipeline Architecture and Design Camp — a four-day, intensive workshop intended to introduce the process of design to a community with historically limited access to the design profession. — bustler.net
The camp was organized by the Louisiana Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA LA) and held at the Tulane School of Architecture. View full entry
Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation (remember THE PINK PROJECT?) has sent us first images of the new home Frank Gehry designed for the initiative. Completed this week, the building is located in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, the neighborhood most devastated by Hurricane Katrina back in August of... View full entry
The Music Box is a New Orleans art installation that makes regular artist’s colonies look like Camazotz. In this tiny shantytown, every building is also a musical instrument, and the entire town can be played in a beautiful, spooky symphony that looks and sounds like something out of Coraline. — grist.org