Pelli Clarke Pelli adds a modest house of worship to its sky-scraping portfolio. Pelli Clarke Pelli's St. Katharine Drexel Chapel at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. With the completion earlier this month of the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel for Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, Cesar Pelli and the architectural firm he heads have added the first house of worship–among its smallest projects at 12,000 square feet–to their vast portfolio. The project represents a long-held goal of the firm’s founder and of the university as well—the original blueprints for the university, founded in 1925, included a chapel that
How could a building that combined the genius of Buckminister Fuller and the power of the Union Tank Car Company become obsolete in little more than ten years?
It appears that Frank Gehry, FAIA, is finding fertile ground in New Orleans. In addition to designing a duplex for Brad Pitt’s “Make It Right” project, Gehry has teamed with urban planner and artist, Robert Tannen, to create a modular shotgun house that they say will be affordable, sustainable, and compatible with the city’s historic housing types.
A year ago, actor Brad Pitt presented lot owners in the devastated Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans with a portfolio of designs by 13 well-regarded architects, saying, in essence, choose a design and your house will be built. Photo ' Virginia Miller/courtesy Make It Right Foundation A house designed by Graft, a Los Angeles firm, is one of six recently completed in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The first six homes built by Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation are now finished. They represent not only fresh starts for homeowners, but also blueprints for affordable, storm-resistant, and sustainable
Correction appended March 25, 2008 When Tulane University architecture students were first presented last fall with the dimensions of the tiny lot in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward that their URBANbuild prototype house would occupy, they knew the scheme for their design/build project would have to be tight. But the test of their ingenuity was kicked up a notch when it turned out that the lot was five feet smaller than it was supposed to be. Still, the fourth-year students managed to configure a three-bedroom, two-bath house on a lot less than 30-by-57 feet in size. Icing on the cake was
The French Market in New Orleans’ French Quarter can still stake a claim to being one of the country’s oldest marketplaces, but in recent years shops stocked with bottles of Louisiana hot sauce, boxes of beignet mix, and other food-oriented souvenirs out-numbered stalls where fresh food was sold. Images courtesy Billes Architecture Billes Architecture has designed improvements to the French Market in New Orleans (top). The complex two blocks along the Mississippi River between Barracks Street and Ursulines Avenue (middle). A farmer’s market section opens on February 1 while a flea market reopened last September (above). Tomorrow the French Market
A plan for redeveloping large sections of the riverfront in New Orleans took a step closer to reality when it received a green light from the city on January 9. The New Orleans Building Corporation (NOBC), whose board includes mayor Ray Nagin and three members of the City Council, endorsed conceptual plans and authorized work to begin on the project’s first phase, perhaps within months. New details about project financing were also released. Image courtesy New Orleans Building Corporation The redevelopment of New Orleans’ riverfront encompasses several areas within a 4.5-mile along the east bank of the Mississippi River. Work
A team of architects led by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, Hargreaves Associates, TEN Arquitectos, and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, will unveil the final design in February for revitalizing a stretch of the Mississippi River in New Orleans. The broad goal of the redesign is to reduce barriers that discourage people from enjoying the river and replace decaying sections with parks and public venues that will trigger private investment.