Open Form Architecture Blog

Ima­ges by Pugh+Scarpa Architects

In De­cem­ber 2006, Brad Pitt con­ve­ned a group of ex­perts in New Or­leans to­brains­torm about buil­ding green af­for­da­ble hou­sing on a large scale to help­vic­tims of Hu­rri­cane Ka­trina. Ha­ving spent time with com­mu­nity lea­ders and­dis­pla­ced re­si­dents de­ter­mi­ned to re­turn home, Pitt rea­li­zed that anop­por­tu­nity exis­ted to build hou­ses that were not only stron­ger and healthier, but that had less im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment. Af­ter dis­cus­sing the hurd­les as­so­cia­ted with re­buil­ding in a de­vas­ta­te­da­rea, the group de­ter­mi­ned that a large-scale re­de­ve­lop­ment pro­ject fo­cu­sed on green af­for­da­ble hou­sing and in­cor­po­ra­ting in­no­va­tive de­sign was in­deed possible.

The group sett­led on the goal of cons­truc­ting 150 ho­mes (one of the lar­ger re­buil­ding pro­jects in the city), with an empha­sis on de­ve­lo­ping an af­for­da­ble sys­tem that could be replicated.

To de­mons­trate re­pli­ca­bi­lity, Pitt de­ter­mi­ned to lo­cate the pro­ject in the Lo­wer 9th Ward, one of the most de­vas­ta­ted areas of New Or­leans, pro­ving that safe ho­mes could and should be re­built. Pitt ho­pes that this pro­ject would be a ca­talyst for re­co­very and re­de­ve­lop­ment th­roughout the Lo­wer 9th Ward and ac­ross the city of New Orleans.

ARCHITECTS

Make It Right’s goal is to join the his­tory of the Lo­wer 9th Ward withc­rea­tive new archi­tec­tu­ral so­lu­tions mind­ful of en­vi­ron­men­tal and per­so­nal­sa­fety con­cerns in or­der to en­cou­rage both the evo­lu­tion of aesthe­tic­dis­tinc­ti­ve­ness and the cons­cien­tious awa­re­ness of na­tu­ral surroundings.

To that end, MIR as­sem­bled a team of four­teen lo­cal, na­tio­nal and in­ter­na­tio­nal world-renowned archi­tec­ture firms spe­cia­li­zing in innovative,ecologically res­pon­si­ble design.

THE PUGH + SCARPA DESIGN

Pugh + Scarpa’s Make it Right (MIR) home seeks to re­de­fine the con­cept of ahome into a fle­xi­ble, mul­ti­func­tio­nal and adap­ta­ble space ad­dres­sing the needs of today’s mo­dern fa­mily, on a li­mi­ted bud­get. Of­fe­ring shel­ter and com­fort, the MIR home breaks the presc­rip­tive mold of the tra­di­tio­nal home by crea­ting pu­blic and pri­vate “zo­nes” in which pri­vate space is deempha­si­zed, in fa­vor of large pu­blic li­ving areas. The or­ga­ni­za­tion of the space is in­ten­ded to trans­form the way peo­ple live-away from a rec­lu­sive, iso­la­ting la­yout to­wards a family-oriented, in­te­rac­tive space.

The ins­pi­ra­tion for the home came from Ame­ri­can patch­work quil­ting tra­di­tions, exem­pli­fied by the Gee’s Bend abs­tract geo­me­tric style-which is itself in­fluen­ced by news­pa­per– and magazine-collages used for in­su­la­tion on the in­side walls of ho­mes in the early ru­ral Ame­ri­can South. Recyc­led woo­den pa­llets are re­po­si­tio­ned here as a patch­wor­ked shade sc­reen wrap­ping the­buil­ding, an in­no­va­tive al­ter­na­tive to ex­pen­sive fa­cade ma­te­rials that lend sits own uni­que cha­rac­ter and tex­ture. The vi­sually ex­pres­sive pa­llets im­part an im­per­fect, rough-hewn in­di­vi­dua­lity that we find par­ti­cu­larly appealing.We are wor­king with lo­cal ma­nu­fac­tu­rers to en­sure the via­bi­lity of this cost-effective and sus­tai­na­ble off-the-shelf pro­duct, ea­sily ob­tai­na­ble and rea­dily re­pla­cea­ble. The pa­llet wrap­ping is joi­ned by de­co­ra­ti­vely per­fo­ra­ted ce­ment board on the east and west fa­ca­des, pro­vi­ding both shade and pri­vacy while allo­wing views out and dap­pled, in­di­rect day­light and bree­zes to en­ter. All the ex­te­rior ele­ments will com­bine and interweave,emerging as a dis­tinc­tive pattern-making aesthetic.

Ima­ges and dra­wings by Pugh+Scarpa Architects

For more in­for­ma­tion vi­sit Make it Right