Buildings
Superdome Restoration Design Contract Awarded
(archrecord.construction.com - 11/18/2005)
By John
Pastier
On Nov. 10, the Louisiana Architects
Selection Board commissioned a team led by Baton Rouge’s
Trahan Architects to bring the Hurricane Katrina-damaged Superdome
back into operation. This is a critical step in restoring
a New Orleans economy that relies heavily on conventions and
tourism. The scope of the first phase of the work will be
to restore the Dome to its previous condition, and to explore
possible functional and amenity enhancements in a later phase.
Serving as consultants will be the New
Orleans firms Billes Architecture and Sizeler Architects,
with Kansas City sports architects Ellerbe Becket. Ellerbe
has previous Superdome experience and conducted the damage
assessment on the building. Trahan has recent sports facility
experience and has won three national AIA design awards in
the past five years.
So far the Superdome's structure has
been judged to be sound, and the breached roof has been temporarily
sealed. The team has 120 days to assess the situation and
draw up first-phase recommendations, with repair work beginning
within this period. It will also explore methods of making
the Superdome more effective as a natural disaster evacuation
shelter in the future. It played this role several times before
Katrina, but was never formally designed for this purpose.
The exterior metal cladding of the opaque monolith is damaged
in places, and Trey Trahan, AIA, principal of the lead firm,
will be exploring the possibility of opening up the exterior
with glass elements. Preliminary cost estimates for the restoration
range between $125 and $200 million.
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