Environment
Architecture Community Fights for Role in Rebuilding
(archrecord.construction.com - 10/24/2005)
By David
Sokol with Sam Lubell
The architecture community has rallied
for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and in some ways
its sympathy is easily quantified: As of mid-October, more
than $100,000 had been pledged to the organization Architecture
for Humanity (AFH), and the AIA website had registered offers
of pro bono services from more than 600 architects.
But the difference between offering
to do the work and getting to do it can be frustrating. Many
architects perceive the disasters as opportunities to implement
good design principles throughout the Gulf Coast. However,
several developments taking shape suggest that design professionals
are being excluded from initial relief and planning efforts.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s 17-person Bring New
Orleans Back advisory committee does not include any representatives
from the design fields. Rather, that committee has approved
an Urban Land Institute proposal to advise the master visioning
process for three months. Further, FEMA-contracted companies
establishing temporary housing communities have not awarded
subcontracts to architects and planners. A spokesperson for
Bechtel, John Schlatter, confirms “that [Bechtel is]
not engaged in any significant design or architectural work.”
Bechtel has already installed more than 7,000 housing units
in three Mississippi counties. CH2M Hill spokesperson Tessa
Anderson says, “we’re just trying to move trailers
and build necessary infrastructures.” Habitat for Humanity
spokesman Joedy Isert says the goal “is to build as many
homes as we can fund,” but says these will be “traditional
Habitat homes” built from a kit of parts, precluding
architectural services.
|
“Already I see the potentially
valuable expertise of architects, especially local practitioners,
going untapped,” says John Messina, a New Orleans-born
architect now at the University of Arizona. “As a profession
we too often have had no input in the economic-political planning
discussions that shape cities.”
The fear that architecture and design
might go underutilized inspired Michael Barranco, founder
of his eponymous architecture, interiors, and planning firm
in Jackson, Mississippi, to introduce architect and planner,
Andres Duany, to Mississippi Development Authority executive
director Leland Speed and Governor Haley Barbour. That meeting
led to a mid-October charrette in Biloxi for 11 Mississippi
Gulf Coast communities, organized by the Congress for New
Urbanism (CNU) (see web story, October 18). John Robert Smith,
Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi notes “Absent a process
like this, I think you could be in real danger of making critical
design and engineering mistakes that haunt you for the next
50 years.”
In a similar spirit of optimism, a constellation
of independent efforts are underway to allows designers to
lend their services. In September, the AIA held a building-assessment
training course for 120 architects in Mississippi. Members
will assess structures’ rebuilding potential free of
charge. In Louisiana, local, state and National AIA components
are sponsoring a conference from November 10-12, likely in
New Orleans, focusing on recovery in that state. The event,
a goal of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco’s 24-member
Louisiana Recovery Authority, will bring together a wide array
of players, including designers, business officials, polititicians,
school boards, realtors, engineers, planners, and, local neighborhood
groups to discuss rebuilding communities, historic preservation,
infrastructure, economic development, and several other issues.
The World Monuments Fund and the National
Trust for Historic Preservation have partnered to advocate
for restoration and sensitive reconstruction measures that
respect the historic assets of the region. The Mayors’
Institute on City Design will hold two special design insitutes
in Biloxi, Mississippi and New Orleans to join design experts
with local mayors in the region. The Jackson, Mississippi
Community Design Center prepared homes for coastal evacuees
and helped plan the CNU charrette.
Looking to the future, Architecture
for Humanity co-founder Kate Stohr says that the group will
work with the Heritage Conservation Network and the Foundation
for Historical Louisiana on a design competition for a contemporary
shotgun house. Architectural Record and Tulane University
are planning a housing competition of their own for the region.
Tulane’s Architecture dean, Reed Kroloff, also says that
the school is considering an event to join community members
with university and non-profit design experts.
Interviewees universally agree that
it is too early to determine whether architects will be able
to significantly sway the course of rebuilding for the better.
And in New Orleans, design is not necessarily the first priority:
“There’s plenty of competition to give advice to
New Orleans,” says CNU president John Norquist. Kroloff
synopsizes the mixed outlook: “Architects are not at
the center of the decision-making process, as usual. On the
other hand, they haven’t been eliminated from the conversation
entirely, they are taking part.”
|
