synthetic infrastructure
New Orleans, LA
Program Levee Upgrade, Aquaculture Facilities, Community Center
Size 33600 sf
Client The City of New Orleans
Year Thesis 2013
As a result of coastal subsidence, catastrophic hurricanes, and sea level rise, the city of New Orleans is faced with an increasingly perilous situation regarding its own survival. At an urban level, how can we reduce the risk of a city whose very survival is hinged on its water-land relationship? At an architectural level, how can we maintain the operation and enjoyment of this water-land boundary without subjecting it to ruthless engineering? This thesis investigates an alternative approach based on soft, inhabitable, and transformative infrastructure.
The master plan portion of the thesis calls for concession of low-lying high-risk areas and establishing a new soft edge along 0’ feet elevation overlapping roughly with Claiborne Avenue. The architectural portion envisions this edge, made out of a continuous landscape of earthen levee structures, to be also integrated with built programs and ecological processes. At the junction between Esplanade and the levee axis, a Treme Aquaculture Center and Market is proposed as one of the typological buildings occupying the ‘batture’ side of the levee. Extending the urban fabric on the levee in a reduced footprint, this center operates with an unprecedented mode of existence where farms, markets, conditioned spaces, municipal protection, and urban qualities all become an ecological whole.
