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on January 5, 2006 at 10:50:28 pm
 

A Collaborative Design/Build Project in New Orleans' Seventh Ward


Vision: The Vision of the 7th Ward Building Arts Gallery is to become a ray of hope to assist and inspire New Orleans residents in the re-building of their neighborhoods and the resurrection of their city. One of the greatest impediments to returning and re-building is a the lack of information, skills, and tools needed to repair damaged homes. The Building Arts Gallery can be a meeting place and a resource center providing information about planning, funding, and carrying out the repairs necessary for residents to return to their homes.

 

Besides reliable information, the Gallery can host classes on building techniques, and provide a tool lending library. The goal is to inspire and empower residents to re-build their own homes to the greatest extent possible. With the tools, skills and knowledge available thanks to the Building Arts Gallery, the regeneration of New Orleans' neighborhoods can begin -one house, one street and one block at a time.

 

The initial proposal for the Gallery is to consist of a space for information sharing and question answering, a repository for tools and material samples, and a large, covered outdoor work-yard for classes, demonstrations and meetings. The structures should be simple, sturdy and handsome enough to inspire pride and generate hope. Ideally, the Gallery can be completely self-sustaining in terms of its use of energy and natural resources. Constructed of pre-manufactured components, it should also be flexible and adaptable enough to be adjusted, extended and adapted by its users in order to accommodate new or changing neighborhood needs.

 

Working with members of the 7th ward community, we propose a collaborative design process that will lead to the construction of building components in Kansas. Once complete, these building elements will be transported to New Orleans and assembled into the framework for the Gallery by a collective of residents working together with students from Kansas and local Universities. Our inspiration is the Creole tradition of craftsmen coming together on weekends to host 'house-raisings' for one another.

 

((The design and construction of a neighborhood resource center in the Seventh Ward in New Orleans. At this point, we are developing a strategy for development of a neighborhood center that focuses on information and education about the art and practice of building. We imagine a space that educates and informs, but also a space that practices building: a small building and a builder’s yard where people can get assistance with their own rebuilding projects. It could also be a place where vocational training could happen, to re-employ people. It would have lockable space to store tools, a sort of office space for staff and media, and a large, outdoor covered space.

 

At this moment, we envision designing and building a pre-fabricated set of building panels and components that get constructed by architecture students at the University of Kansas and shipped down and assembled in New Orleans. The emphasis would be on designing an intelligent construction system that could be deployed in a complete element/module/section of the center, but be extendable (by ourselves or others) in later semesters. This open-endedness is important as the use and programming of the center grows.

 

The Seventh Ward is considered by many to be the quintessential Creole neighborhood in New Orleans. It once had many skilled Creole craftsmen, and a vestige of that craft base still remains. Although not as prosperous as it once was, the neighborhood is identified with halls that each reflect a group of professionals, mechanics, skilled laborers or a benevolent society. There is also a heritage of “house-raisings” where craftsmen join together to build and finish each others’ homes in the neighborhood. Our vision would be that our pre-fab components be assembled into a finished building in New Orleans in a similar, collaborative fashion. So the idea of a center for the building arts seems to fit into that historical context: the “Seventh Ward Building Arts Gallery.” ))


Key Participants


Articles about the 7th Ward and the rebuilding of New Orleans:


Potential Funders


Model Programs to Learn From


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