selophane.blog

I love cities, I love the daytime hustle and bustle and the ease of access of everything. I also love the myriad of things to do at night. Yet, my interactions with cities have been largely shaped by the New York City of my Childhood and the New Orleans I knew as an adult.

In the 1980s and early 1990s when we used to drive into New York from Long Island it was always a place of mixed emotions. It was tall and grand with countless places to see and visit, but danger seemed to lurk around the corner. We didn’t take the subways, we took busses, and we never walked down dark alleys or empty streets. When someone asked you something on the street you kept your head down and kept on moving, you never knew if they were really in need or pulling some sort of grift. In addition, you never went into Central Park at night, nature was not to be trusted — it provided wonderful places for people to hide and attack you.

When I moved to New Orleans for college my conception of a city changed. The fear and danger were still there, but I quickly learned three cardinal rules of safety. First, If there are grand trees overhead, you’re probably ok: you may get mugged, but you’ll still live to tell about it. Thats not to say I would go to Audubon or City Park at night, they were still plenty dangerous in the dark, this rule pertained more to residential neighborhoods. Second, when in doubt, walk in the street, there are less places for people to hide. This rule was especially pertinent in all of the dark neighborhoods of the upper French quarter and Marigny. Third, open stores and other people make good witnesses, and while they might not help you, they can call 911 and get you to the hospital sooner and provide positive ID to the police later. This isn’t to say I always felt scared in New Orleans; I didn’t. I just knew where to walk and where not to, and what neighborhoods were fine to drive through, but never stop in.

I am still trying to figure out the danger map of DC. At first I thought the Tall Tree rule of New Orleans was the same up here, but I’ve been in neighborhoods that most people up here consider safe and they are absent of trees, and I’ve heard of muggings and other crimes occurring on and around the National Mall, which might just have the tallest trees in the city. In addition, friends of mine will have no qualms about walking down residential blocks at night, and this has always been a major danger sign for me. I know that eventually I’ll figure it out, though it would be easier if I was living in town instead of our in the exurbs.

This week the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced the recipients of the 2009 Design Awards. Out of 70 entries, 12 were chosen for awards, 3 of which were awards of Honor and the other 9 were awards of Merit.

The theme for this year’s awards was “Responsive, Responsible, Timeless,” which was chosen to emphasis the importance of classical architecture and design. The awards were chosen by a Jury featuring Jim Evans, AIA; Andrew Vrana, AIA; and Kimberly Hickson, AIA and were presented in a ceremony presided over by Jeffrey Smith, AIA 2009 President of the AIA New Orleans Chapter and Design Awards Chair Michael Piazza, AIA.

Of the 12 winners there are only 6 firms represented; I have to wonder why this is. Is there a lack of architects doing good work in New Orleans, or is this phenomenon the result of the 70 project pool that was judged? If the former, then there seems to be an opportunity waiting for a young rising star to make their name, if its the latter I wonder why so few offices are entering work to be judged. I would hate to think that the results of the awards show a bias on the part of the judges towards these 6 firms, considering that 3 of which – Wayne Troyer Architects, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, and Bild Design – happen to be the top four winners from last year (see this article I posted last April). Of course, not knowing the rest of the applicant pool these could simply be the best entries who fit with the theme, and no one wants a jury choosing projects to give awards to based on a desire to show variety. In addition, I have to wonder how fast and loose the jury played with the stated theme. Many of these projects, with the exception of the historic preservation awards, do not seem to emphasis classical architecture or classical design proportions. While I would not disagree that they are good examples of contemporary or modern design, I have to wonder how the jury would defend the classification of them as “timeless.”

Listed below are the winners and their respective categories:

Above is the keynote address from the Tulane School of Architecture sponsored symposium: Preservation Matters by Tulane Alum and Editor of Architectural Record magazine, Robert Ivy, FAIA. The speech is a long overdue acknowledgement of the work of the Preservation Studies / Historic Preservation Program headed by my past professor, Eugene Cizek, FAIA and a discussion of the historic preservation movement within the city of New Orleans and Tulane’s role through the twentieth century. I have to laud the efforts of the new Dean of the Architecture School, Kenneth Schwartz, who introduces the conference and Mr. Ivy. Regional Modernism has a more detailed synopsis of the presentation.

Throughout my years at the school, I always felt that the historical importance of place and the efforts of the preservation program to bring this idea to the student body was too often bulldozed by a blind passion for high modernism and other international styles. Issues of climate and green design were handled in the structural technology classes, but too often they did not play a part in the critically explored design studio work.

As an aside, I spent a number of minutes trying to figure out where they held this symposium. This lecture hall does not remind me of any space within the building while I was there. The main lecture hall is sloped, while this is obviously flat. Eventually after much head scratching I reread the symposium invitation and realized that this was held in the new University Student Center. Now I’m glad to see that this building (which was under repair for most of my years at Tulane) is in use, but I have to wonder if this type of event shouldn’t have been held at Richardson Memorial Hall (the Architecture School) where it could have had a greater influence on the student body and faculty.

Tulane School of Architecture is hosting a one day symposium at the end of January focusing on Preservation. The keynote speaker will be Robert Ivy, FAIA and one of my favorite professors, Eugene Cizek, FAIA, will be providing commentary. This symposium is free and open to the public. If I was able to be in New Orleans, I would love to attend.
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[Image via Trumpet.]

Today starts DesCours, New Orleans’s second annual AIA sponsored public art installation festival. For the next five days the public spaces all over the French Quarter and Central Business District (CBD) will be transformed into interactive design installations. Not only is this a cool chance to inhabit spaces by up and coming artists and designers, but local fixtures such as Rebirth Brass Band and the Trème Brass Band will be filling the spaces with sounds that are distinctly New Orleanian. This “Architects Week” on an urban scale is free and open to the public.

I wish this festival was around when I was living in NOLA. This is the kind of architectural design culture that was missing. There was Art for Art’s Sake and White Linen, but nothing that really embraced new architectural thought. I would love to see a similar concept come to DC or NOVA, we could really use a public celebration and exposure to interactive architecture installations.

With the recent closing of many of the area’s Circuit City stores and the bleak financial forecast, this Sunday’s Washington Post article about what to do with big box stores after they close down, seemed to be fortuitously timed to impact the local planning discourse. For this article, the Post assembled a collection of local architects and artists, such as Darrel Rippeteau, Roger K. Lewis, Esocoff & Associates, et al., and asked them how they would reuse a big-box store.

The graphics in this article are intriguing and open an sub/urban planning discussion on what to do with the trappings of early twenty-first century American development once this business model has changed. The proposals include luxury housing, gardens, vineyards, and other adaptive reuse measures. This is all green and good, but I have to question the safety and cost of reusing these big box stores. Like fast food franchises, big box stores are not built to last. They are not constructed with any concept of their permanence, instead they are meant to go up quick and cheap and come down the same way when the new mega-ultra-super mart opens around the corner. The advantage of reusing old warehouses and factories is that theses large masonry structures were built to last and much of these structure can be re-purposed for less a strenuous program. This advantage would not be present in the Circuit Cities which will soon find themselves lacking a purpose.

There was one proposal that stood out to me, instead of re-imagining the big box store, it adapted the parking lot to a more urban context. The design called for two “linear buildings” surround a “parking module.” This strategy is closely related to one of the common forms for multifamily construction – the Texas Donut. In this strategy the parking garage is surrounded by the program, hiding it from view and creating a “safe” place for parking. This is a strategy that has become quite common in urban fringe development and could be beneficial in creating density within the big box context. The other reason this strategy caught my eye is that in my Thesis project for architecture school, I repurposed the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in New Orleans to create a public plaza and a municipal library. Part of the goal of my project was to acknowledge the big box stores as the modern equivalent of the urban market and to reintegrate them into the civic context.

I submitted the op-ed below to the editorial desk of the New Orleans Times Picayune two weeks ago. I have not received any response to my inquiries, so I assume that they are not interested; if that changes I may have to remove this post. In any case, I would like to present my solution for a sustainable redevelopment of New Orleans:

An urban plan for a new New Orleans.

Although New Orleans avoided Gustavʼs wrath, we need to learn as much as we did the hard way from Katrina. Instead of rebuilding the city and the levees as they were, we need to make it so that New Orleans will never worry about a hurricane again.

New Orleans has had a past fraught with disasters: twice fires wiped out the bulk of the French and Spanish colonial city and there have been numerous floods and levee breaks which have altered the cityʼs shape.  Over the last century we believed that we had bent nature to our will by controlling the course of the Mississippi River and preventing the annual flood.  At the same time developers drained the surrounding swamps to make new low-lying easily flooded subdivisions.  The damage caused by Katrina showed this control to be fleeting.

The rebuilding after Katrina was done with the wrong methodology: we treated the symptoms, not the problems. What we needed to do was create a plan to address the environment, the economy and the unique identity of New Orleans, and we still can.  The levee system by itself is not sufficient; overtopping and crevasses are always a possibility.  The city needs a two tiered approach to safety, one which selectively prevents and allows controlled flooding in to create a city that can function with six feet of water in the streets of evangeline.  New Orleans is also facing a similar struggle with its economy; it relies on the tourism industry and the port to survive.  With the current downturn in the national economy there is less money to be spent which will eventually hinder both the shipment of goods and services and the attraction of money to the tourist trade.  The city needs a new sustainable identity.

To save the Crescent City we need to recreate it as a new Creole city by blending the local culture with building concepts from around the world.  The Dutch city of Amsterdam and an area of Peru called Belén both have novel strategies to handle flooding; one is a city that walls off the water and the other is a community that floats atop it.  The older urban areas of New Orleans should learn from Amsterdam and create more raised levees and canals to bring high water from the river and the lake to designated overflows, much like the Bonnet Carré Spillway.  These areas, the former swamps and low lying neighborhoods devastated by Katrina, could be built anew using updated concepts based on the Peruvian strategy; buildings and public plazas that lay on the ground during parts of the year, but float on the surface of the water during flood periods.  These buildings would be anchored in place but allowed to move vertically to adjust to rising and falling water levels.  This strategy could serve as a water recharge basin and allow all rain water to be pumped from the low lying city streets into the new controlled flood plains where it can be treated and released down river or into the lake.  This constant movement of water will work like a bayou and prevent mosquito borne diseases.  These levees and canals will create a more efficient mass transit systems with in the city with boat traffic running atop the water and an enclosed rail system below.

New Orleans should look beyond structures and embrace a new urban identity.  By improving  upon the model of Greensburg, Kansas – creating all platinum LEED buildings and aiming for carbon neutrality – New Orleans could brand itself as the heart of the Green movement.  Most of its power needs could be met through hydro electric, solar and other non-polluting forms of energy production.  Water that is collected in the recharge flood plains should be used for plant irrigation, cleaning the streets after parades and other non-potable water needs.  Tax breaks and incentives should be offered to companies that achieve carbon neutrality, manufacture alternative energy products and research new environmentally friendly technologies.  By encouraging organizations like the USGBC and Green Globes to make New Orleans their headquarters, the Big Easy could be the leader at the heart of the green movement. These new businesses would supply New Orleanians with jobs and the city with a consistent source of revenue that would enable a more locally funded rebuilding process.  In addition, the greening of New Orleans will help the tourist industry by making it a destination for cultural and environmental tourism.  The city may have missed the tech boom of the late twentieth century, but it could easily embrace the twenty-first as a model green city.

This redevelopment plan is a bold stroke and some may argue that it is unrealistic; but wasnʼt draining almost 100 square miles of swamp for more dry real estate just as bold?  It is my belief that without daring aspirations the Crescent City will always be teetering on the edge of destruction.  Yet, by allowing controlled flooding and by bringing in the industry of the twenty-first century, Creole culture and adaption can once again save New Orleans.

-Spencer Lepler is a graduate of the Tulane School of Architecture (ʼ05) with a Master of Architecture and a certificate in Preservation Studies.  He lives in Northern Virginia and is working towards his architectural license.  His blog can be read at http://www.selophane.com/blog

A good friend of mine from architecture school who is involved in the process of building the new Charity Hospital sent me an update on the old building’s situation. Selections from her response below:

[A]s I work at the firm that did the storm damage and the new packages to get the work done to fix the MYRIAD of problems just from the storm itself with FEMA I can pretty much tell you this: that building will never again be a hospital. According to the codes necessary for health care there is no way for that building to reach code for less than a couple more million than they’re going to spend on the new one. In addition the amount of asbestos and mold inherent in the HVAC and wall systems, due to the materials used last time they renovated that building, stack another couple to 30 mil on. It’s not a cheap building to fix for anything, especially for something as specific as a hospital. Which is why they are pouring 10.2 billion dollars (most likely plus) into the new LSU/Charity Hospital …

[P]eople can make noise as much as they want about it being done faster with a [renovation] to the old buildings, but it took a team of over 100 people 3 years just to get the contracts out to bid to get the roofing fixed …

[N]o matter how much we may want them to save the old hospital don’t count on anyone ever having enough money to fix that building, count on the new one getting built…

It looks like the building might have more of a chance being bought by a developer and turned into condos than being brought back to life as a hospital. I have to wonder if it would be possible to turn this building into a museum focusing on health care and hurricanes – maybe house a couple of different museums? I hope that whatever happens, this building remains a part of the urban landscape. It is one of the few Art Deco Buildings in the city, and unless it gets some federal backing and protection as a historic property it may go the way of the Rivergate.

[Image © adrastosno all rights reserved.]

This is a bit of really good news! Over at PreservationNation it seems that there is some discussion by RMJM Hillier about rehabilitating Charity Hospital in New Orleans. This 1938 Art Deco building always reminded me of a little bit of Gotham City in the heart of the Crescent. Besides its architectural good looks, I knew many a service industry worker without health care who were able to be treated here without having to worry about repayment, and quite a few LSU medical school students who trained here. In addition, I had a number of friends in the Tulane EMS squad, and they always told me that if I got shot, to ask the ambulance driver to bring me to charity, because they had the best gunshot trauma ward in town.

It remains to be seen if this will ever see the light of day, and in addition, if it does how preservation sensitive the rehabilitation will be.

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Its been over three years since I moved to Northern Virginia and said good bye to my friends and Alma Mater in New Orleans. How was I to know that 3 months later the world would end and everything New Orleans would be measured in relevance to Katrina. Now, as we welcome in year 3 PK, New Orleans is facing the possibility of another major disaster. It is my hope of hopes that Gustav does not undo all the rebuilding and planning that have happened in the past three years.

If the worst happens and the city is deluged again, I worry that the country will not be as generous as last time; I can already hear them crying on the senate floor for abandonment and rebuilding elsewhere. I can see the talking heads blaming New Orleans for not “learning its lesson,” as if the city had not been flooded numerous times in its past. If the money does come again, I can just imagine the repressive building codes to and flood plane restrictions, all methods of preventing future loss of property. Yet the city would become one big concrete block raised 40 feet in the air.

How can we have rebuilt an entire continent over 50 years ago and then proceed to fly to the moon, but we cannot rebuild or even protect one city from the tempests of fate? It is simple, we’ve gotten to arrogant and stopped innovating. Instead of looking at how to build flood proof buildings and levees to hold back the water, we should be looking at buildings that will adapt to flooding and remember that the yearly flooding of the Mississippi is what raised New Orleans above sea level. Imagine, a city that truly embraces the entity of being Creole; it could be a hybrid of Venice, Amsterdam, and its current state. Improved dikes would protect the most historic neighborhoods, and the newer/rebuilt lower lying areas could be designed to raise and fall with the tide.