Finished Projects

URBANbuild 19 is a one-bedroom, one-bath “tiny house” scheme designed to be prefabricated, deployed, and reassembled to perform a variety of potential programmatic functions. During the design process a relationship was formed with Louvis Services, a local nonprofit working to find creative solutions for homelessness. This brought a new direction to implement the affordable scheme as transitional housing, in service of Louvis’ mission. Students prefabricated the home at Tulane’s Albert and Tina Small Center, before transporting and constructing the home in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. 

URBANbuild17 marks the next phase of research which is both a reflective and a critical continuation of past efforts. This next phase of research challenges students to envision a larger scale phased approach to urban intervention. The two bedroom ADA accessible dwelling is the first phase of a 4 year multi-family housing masterplan in collaboration with Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

As the fabrication of URBANbuild16 was underway, a relationship was established with members of the neighboring Bethlehem Lutheran Church – the oldest historically black Evangelical Lutheran Church in the continental United States. Bethlehem owns two properties in Central City. One is located at 1823 Washington Avenue, and a portion of that lot holds their current Church building. The other property is a large empty “Key” lot directly across the street at 1822 Washington Avenue which houses URBANbuild17.

URBANBuild 15’s research agenda focused upon the creation of a prototype that could be repeated side by side, thus producing dense urban multifamily options. This base single-story unit possesses two bedrooms and two baths, and schematic developments critically questioned the need for the two courtyards of UB14. Instead, UB15 possesses a single generous open-air courtyard that is located as a continuation of the entryway porch that’s roofed by a translucent cladding system.

The mission of URBANbuild 13 is to create a 2 bedroom/2 bath house with the flexibility to function as two separate rental units with a shared kitchen. The scheme is a single level “infill” prototype with two units anchored by the shared kitchen, complimented by an outdoor common area.

URBANbuild 9 marked a return to the program’s partnership with NHS. By this point, URBANbuild completed six projects within a few block radius in Central City, and a body of work was beginning to emerge. Continuing this trend, this year’s home would become the first of three neighboring projects to be built on a single block bounded by Harmony and Toledano streets. Completing these three homes was an ambitious goal on a block that was in the greatest need—its water and sewer lines were broken, and its storm drains were not functional – so URBANbuild worked with the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board to repair the storm water drainage system.

URBANbuild 7 is a finely crafted home that raised the bar on expectations for all projects to follow. For this house, NHS gave the program two adjacent substandard lots, allowing students to pursue a different planning typology than many earlier URBANbuild homes. Students were not constrained by the typical narrow “shotgun” lot configuration so common to New Orleans and were able to pursue a wider, center-hall strategy.

The year of URBANbuild 5, Program Director Byron Mouton’s private firm, BILD Design, was invited to work with Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation. URBANbuild’s student team then collaborated with BILD Design and TKO Construction on a house project for Make It Right. This relationship allowed students to work with materials and systems in compliance with “cradle to cradle” goals.

Provided with access to geothermal cooling systems, solar energy systems, heating systems of greater efficiency, and the opportunity to work alongside an established contractor, students were able to achieve a project of greater scale.

URBANbuild 1 was initiated in partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) in response to a HUD grant recieved after Hurricane Katrina, when many New Orleanians were just returning to the city. This grant presented an opportunity to prove the program could work—that a group of students could build a house on time and on budget in the space of 14 weeks. Achieving this goal required inventing a system in which students engage with licensed professionals when necessary in order to fully complete each project within the time frame of a single academic semester.