Brad Pitt Unveils “Green” Housing Designs for New Orleans Rebuilding
Actor Brad Pitt recently unveiled a “green” housing design for New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward and said he was appalled by the slow pace of rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina hit last year.
Two New York City architects won a contest, underwritten by Pitt, for an affordable, environmentally sound housing design. Their complex of single family homes and apartments would be built from modular pieces into long houses on a site that connects to the neighboring Mississippi River levee with a wide pedestrian ramp.
Using resource-saving appliances and fixtures, solar electricity and hot water heaters, and recycled building materials, the team hopes to cut pollution and decrease operating energy use by 50 percent to 60 percent compared with traditional homes.
Environmental group Global Green USA, which sponsored the effort with Pitt, is raising money to build the project for roughly $3.5 million to $5 million, a spokesman said. Architects Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of Workshop/APD dubbed their design Greenola, which plays on the nickname for New Orleans, Louisiana — NOLA.
Whether the new homes will look like they belong in New Orleans may depend on the eye of the beholder. Berman said that exterior materials and the addition of porches, as well as the long forms, could make them echo other buildings in the area, but the core building is intended to be reproducible anywhere.
[Source: Reuters and Planet Ark]
