Resiliency Revised: Remediation and Recreation in New Orleans Water Systems

Nicole MehaffeyThesis Research, Analysis & Design Submitted May 2016Advisor Marianne DesmaraisTulane University School of Architecture

R E S I L I E N C Y R E V I S E DREMEDIATION AND RECREATIONIN NEW ORLEANS WATER SYSTEMS

R E S I L I E N C Y R E V I S E D M E H A F F E Y

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T H E S I S 2 0 1 6 D E S M A R A I S

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C O N T E N TAbstract & Statement 4Introduction 6Thesis Essay 8Annotated Bibliography 36Precedent Research & Case Study Analysis 38Program Analysis 48Site Analysis 54Project Development 68


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A B S T R A C T

In environmental terms, New Orleans is a city that should not exist. With the Mississippi River eager to escape its engineered confinement, the topography of the city sinking slowly due to subsidence, and the steady rise of sea level partnered with wet-land and coastal erosion, the future of New Orleans is wet and it is fast approaching. Initial settlers built on the naturally elevated sediment deposits of the Mississippi River, but over time and as the city grew, swamps were drained and occupation spread into lower, more saturated ground. For over two hundred years, hu-mans have interfered with water’s natural authority over this area. We have contained, diverted, drained, and regulated rivers, lakes, and swamps to maintain a constructed version of the ground plane that subverts natural processes to the regions’ detriment.

Plans for the future of New Orleans have been debated since Hurricane Katrina served as an exposé to our synthesized and extremely fragile system. From the Dutch Dialogues, a com-prehensive urban redevelopment plan, to smaller scale water management studies such as the Mirabeau Water Gardens, the drawing board has rarely been empty. Proposals have met resis-tance from the community, and ten years after the disaster, no coherent plan has been outlined. New Orleans isn’t the only city searching for answers; delta and coastal cities the world over are recognizing the need to rethink resiliency and sustainability in light of global environmental changes.

This project proposes neighborhood-scale interventions that bring previously concealed water processes to light by exhibit-ing them in a sustainable community-centered resource. Rather than altering existing infrastructure, this strategy would utilize current neutral ground conditions in order to take pressure off the City’s drainage network. By accepting and accommodat-ing water within the urban fabric, New Orleans can address the deficiencies in defensive water infrastructure to define a new resilience.

S TAT E M E N T

Resiliency in New Orleans must be redefined by converting an existing, rigid and defensive ap-proach to water management to a more integrated, flexible and reciprocal strategy of urban plan-ning. By merging public amenity with public awareness, rightful authority can be given back to the natural systems of our chosen milieu through the recognition of flux as an element of design.

figure 1Water and Subsidence in Southern Louisianaimage by author


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I N T R O D U C T I O N

In order to rethink or revise the city of New Orleans, we must first understand the components that have contributed to its current condition. Recognizing the geography of this deltaic plain is paramount. The region’s topography was first built and has since been governed by the Mississippi River. The city was founded because of its strategic position on the threshold be-tween the Gulf of Mexico and the heart of the United States. In the city’s early history, urban development was influenced and frequently thwarted by the River’s authority over the area. With the rise of modern technology, humans discovered new ways to contain, redirect, drain, dredge, restrict and control the waters that surrounded them. Infrastructural interventions seemed to solve problems of flooding and protect against po-tential storms, contributing to an overall feeling of separation from water: a safety from its imminent threats. The effects that the interventions had on the environment were not apparent until disaster struck in the form of a powerful hurricane. The walls had not only confined a slowly accumulating volume of water, but prompted the sinkage of dry land beside the ris-ing water, exaggerating the “bowl” typology of New Orleans.

The primary responses to Hurricane Katrina’s destruction were questions: Why do people choose to live in harm’s way? Why did Bienville choose such an imperiled location? And most impor-tantly, should we abandon New Orleans, or is it worth saving?

Since this critical event, recovery and redevelopment has been a slow and pain-staking process: city-scale proposals are outlined, discussed, critiqued, revised, and ultimately rejected. Neigh-borhoods and individuals initiate their own reconstruction strat-egies, disregarding any bigger-picture plans in favor of quick recovery, resulting in a sort of patch-work, home-grown revival.

If we critically evaluate the deficiencies and dangers of New Orleans’s existing natural and human-made environment, the successes and failures of post-Katrina redevelopment propos-als, and the means and methods of those who live fortuitous-ly with water, we should be able to define a new resilience.

figure 2Marshall, Bob. “Losing Ground.” ProPublica. August 14, 2014. <http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana/>edited by author


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A C O N D I T I O N A L “ S I T E ” A S T R AT E G I C “ S I T U AT I O N ”

Three centuries ago, the city of New Orleans emerged from a swampy delta as a strategic perch along the fertile banks of the Mississippi River, one hundred and fifty meandering miles north of its exit into the Gulf of Mexico. The position of this French fort was debated, and possible locations included Bayou Manchac near Baton Rouge, the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Natchi-toches, Biloxi, Mobile and Pensacola.1 Bienville ultimately select-ed New Orleans in order to take advantage of a safer, quicker, more reliable portage route. To avoid the long treacherous trip up the strong currents of the Mississippi River, ships could instead travel from the Gulf through the sheltered waters of the Mississip-pi Sound and Lake Pontchartrain, into a small inlet called Bayou St. John. The two mile plot of land between the termination of the canal and a bend in the Mississippi River was established as Vieux Carré and remains today as New Orleans’ French Quarter.

The advantages to founding a settlement at the mouth of the Mis-sissippi are notable: a mild climate, arable soil, military advantag-es, potential to control a new port connected to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and a strategic position to exploit and protect the vast French Louisiana claim.2 The naturally elevated banks, created by sediment deposits from the fast-flowing and gradu-ally shifting river, provided a compatible site for building a city.

The disadvantages of this location were less obvious, and were recognized and dealt with over time. The settlers found that the powerful river was susceptible to seasonal flooding, and that the Gulf Coast area in general was subject to heavy rain and hurricanes. The swamp lands, resembling a bowl with the River —to the east, south and west— and the Lake —to the north— as an encircling rim, exhibited the tendency for extremely slow, sometimes nonexistent, drainage. This stagnant water provided habitat for dangerous wildlife, prompted unwanted decompo-sition and noxious fumes, and fostered the threat of disease.

Richard Campanella discusses the difference between “site” and “situation” in the founding of New Orleans. He states “what makes a great city is not its site but its situation. Site refers to the city’s actual physical footing; situation means its regional context

1 Campanella, Richard. Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans, 112.

2Campanella, Richard. Delta Urbanism New Orleans, 17.

3figure 3“Louisiana Maps.” University of Texas at Austin Libraries.<https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/louisi-ana.html>Original source “Map of the Tract between the for-mer Coast Bluff, and the Mississippi River, known as, Orleans Island.” From Report on the Social Statistics of Cities, Compiled by George E. Waring, Jr., United States. Census Office, Part II, 1887.edited by author


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and how it connects with the world.” 4 Comparing New Orleans to other strongly situated but poorly sited cities such as Venice, Manhattan, Vienna, and Rotterdam establishes it in a global dia-logue about how cities respond to their inherited environmental conditions. Considering Bienville’s dilemma of weighing the ad-vantages of situation and disadvantages of site in the location of New Orleans, Colten surmises, in An Unnatural Metropolis, that “situation won. That is, New Orleans’ strategic position as the gateway to the Mississippi River valley bestowed upon it commercial advantages that outweighed any inherent site shortcomings.”5

Although New Orleans can be considered one of America’s most important cities, its environmental obstacles have shaped its de-velopment and contributed to critical events in its three hundred year history. This is a sort of a cycle: geological conditions cause problems that prompt humans to intervene. Infrastructural inter-ventions in turn, instigate environmental changes and vice ver-sa, resulting in a seemingly never-ending cause and effect loop.

H U M A N I N T E R V E N T I O N : T H E C I T Y A S A N “ A N T I T H E S I S ” T O N AT U R E

For the next century and a half, the expansion of New Orleans was restricted to the natural crescent-shaped high ground along the River’s bank. The “back of town” was defined by what is now Claiborne Ave, an edge that distinguished land below sea level —the uninhabited marshes— from the slope of the River’s natural levee.6 The French quickly realized that the earthen le-vee was not sufficient enough to prevent flooding and erected New Orleans’s first artificial levees in the 1720’s. The first step was to create an 18 foot wide, 3-4 foot tall bulwark than ran a mile along the town’s riverfront. Since the levee only directly responded to the riverfront, high water that escaped its banks beyond the extents of the flood protection could rise from the back of town and inundate New Orleans. A pair of levees were then constructed at the edges of town, perpendicular to the riv-er, extending into the back swamp. To complete the enclosure, a final levee running parallel with the river, along the present day route of Rampart Street, was erected. This first closed-loop

4 Campanella, Richard. Delta Urbanism New Orleans, 24.

“New Orleans’s strategic position as the gateway to the Mississip-pi River valley bestowed upon it commercial advantages that out-weighed any inherent site short-comings.”5

5Colten, Craig. An Unnatural Metropolis, 2.

figure 4“Louisiana Maps.” University of Texas at Austin Libraries.<https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/louisi-ana.html>Original source “Diagram showing the inundated District Sauvé’s Crevasse May 3rd 1849.” From Re-port on the Social Statistics of Cities, Compiled by George E. Waring, Jr., United States. Census Office, Part II, 1886.edited by author



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system encircled a 44 square block area, and was successful for a few years until it collapsed before the 1735 flood.7

With technological advancements at the turn of the twenti-eth century came the implementation of municipal drainage. Not only were plans made for a system to drain runoff and groundwater from saturated soil, but the previously uninhab-itable marshland could now be made “dry” and marketed as valuable real estate. In 1895, the Drainage Advisory Board pro-posed a strategy using natural topography to drain water to low points within the city’s “hydrological sub-basins” —neigh-borhoods with similar elevation gradients. From these low points, one set of pumps would propel water through outfall canals, and a separate set would dispel water into adjacent lakes.8 Campanella identifies municipal drainage as the “single most dramatic transformation of the New Orleans cityscape.” He goes on to say that “The brilliant solution that drained the dreaded backswamp… created scores of beautiful neighbor-hoods and thousands of happy home owners. But the drain-age system, together with the levee system, also enticed people into harm’s way with a fatally false sense of security.” 9

“Modern levee construction and municipal drainage effectively ended the occasional flooding—from river, lake, or sky—that frustrated New Orleanians in historical times.”10 What the city didn’t immediately comprehend were the effects of this infra-structural overhaul. The levees and drainage system eliminated incoming water and sediment, removing water from the soil body and allowing organic matter to decompose. Consequent-ly, the sand, silt and clay particles then settled, compacting the land and lowering its elevation. Subsidence is not a new story in New Orleans. In 1860 a report to Congress measured that St. Charles Hotel, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Louis Hotel and the Custom House had each sunk between 20 and 36 inches. This localized sinkage was caused by heavy structures bearing too much weight upon the soft soils at their bases. In contrast, the widespread sinkage that worsened throughout the 20th century was systematic: by 1960, some neighborhoods in the lakeside lowlands had dropped 3-6 feet below sea level. This major sink-ing was due in part to a suburban migration from the city’s core outward into the marsh-turned-neighborhoods. At the end of the 20th century, half of the city’s topography and 62% of its population resided below sea level.11

“Preparing for and responding to water hazards were powerful influ-ences in shaping the largest city on the lower Mississippi... These manipulations were the measure of transactions between humans and nature”7





11figure 5“Vertical Migration: Population Distribution with re-spect to Topographic Elevation 1700s-2000.” Cam-panella, Richard. Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans, 188.edited by author


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The hazards of occupying land below sea level are twofold. First, the water that would normally drain down a slope is trapped in a bowl. Second, the open-air canals and pumping systems that are needed to remove the trapped water tend to remain at or above sea level while the adjacent land sinks. This creates an alarming anomaly of water flowing above the rooftops of the sunken neighborhoods.12

What has happened between colonial times and now is a series of human interventions on natural environmental conditions. Campanella defines deltas as “products of fluidity and dyna-mism.”14 When we attempt to rationalize our deltaic environ-ment, particularly when trying to overlay a city or infrastructure on top of it, we combat nature. “Humans resist geological vola-tility and seek to tame it by imposing rigidity, constraint, and order upon it.”14

In New Orleans, we have disrupted nature in two ways: restric-tion and replication. From the drainage of the backswamp, to the reinforcement of the levees on the Lake and the River, we con-tain, redirect, drain, and dam the water surrounding us. We also dredge, dig and fortify canals for drainage and industry. With-in the city, canals were dug to provide for water retention and drainage. Outside city limits, gas and fishing industries dredged hundreds of waterways for quicker access to the swamps and the coastline. Instead of utilizing the existing waterways, we’ve reproduced nature with artifice, creating a chaotic, scarred land and waterscape.15

“Modern levee construction and municipal drainage effectively ended the occasional flooding—from river, lake, or sky—that frus-trated New Orleanians in historical times.”10


figure 6“17th Street Canal”Mendelsohn, Ben. “New Orleans.” Ben Men-delsohn. February 17, 2013. <http://alexplusben.com/article/louisiana-new-orleans>

figure 7“Orleans Avenue Canal looking North 2009”Grissett, Sheila. “Work to Begin on New Orleans Outfall Canals.” Nola.com. February 3, 2011. <http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2011/01/work_to_begin_on_three_new_orl.html>

“Separating the human-made en-vironment from its natural endow-ment has been the perpetual bat-tle for New Orleans.”13





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figure 8“Spoil Banks: Edges of canals dredged by oil and gas industry” from “Louisiana Is Drowning, Quickly.” Touching Your Community. August 30, 2014. <http://touchingyourcommunity.com/2014/08/30/louisiana-is-drowning-quickly/>


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figure 9“Mississippi River Levee under High Water 2011” Devlin, Ray. “New Orleans and Louisiana Aerials.” Ray Devlin Photography. <http://raydevlinphotography.com/new-orleans-louisiana/louisiana-aerials>


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T H R E AT E N E D F R O M E V E R Y D I R E C T I O N

From the rapidly receding coast line, its most significant defense against storms, to the precarious walls that hold back the power-ful Mississippi and the submissive Lake Pontchartrain, from the tropical climate that delivers heavy rain and the risk of storms, to the sinking ground beneath our feet, New Orleans is a city that is threatened from all directions.

SubsidenceNew Orleans sunk 1/8 inch to 1 1/8 inch during an observed three year period from 2002-2005.16 This is the slowest subsid-ence rate observed since the levees were initially built in the mid 20th century. Campanella observes that from 1895 to 2000, the most extreme elevation change occurred in New Orleans East where subsidence was upwards of 8 feet. Some neighborhoods like Lakeview and Gentilly sunk 6 feet or more, while other parts of town, including parts of Uptown, Mid-City and the 7th Ward, had dropped a minimum of 2 feet.17

Coastal ErosionThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has identi-fied that when the rate of coastal erosion is coupled with pro-jected world-wide sea level rise, southeastern Louisiana could be inundated with 4-5 feet of Gulf water by 2100.18

Wetland LossLouisiana is losing 25-35 square miles of wetlands each year, contributing to the prediction that over 640,000 acres of coast will be under water by 2050. Every 2.7 miles of wetlands absorb 1 foot of storm surge.19

Increase in Storm IntensityRise in sea surface temperatures (due in part to global warming) contributes to increased strength and frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic.20 Current models suggest that intensity and dura-tion of hurricane should increase 5% for ever 1OC (1.8OF) rise in sea surface temperature.21

16 figure 10“Subsidence in New Orleans 2002-2005”Dixon, Amelung, Ferretti, Novali, Rocca, Dokka, Sellall, Kim, Wdowinski, and Whitman. (2006). Sub-sidence and flooding in New Orleans. Nature, 441, 587-588. Link <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6623>

17Campanella, Richard. Bienville’s Dilemma: A Histori-cal Geography of New Orleans, 188.

18Marshall, Bob. “Louisiana Coast Faces Highest Rate of Sea Level Rise Worldwide.” The Lens. February 21, 2013. <http://thelensnola.org/2013/02/21/new-research-louisiana-coast-faces-highest-rate-of-sea-level-rise-on-the-planet/>

19 “Louisiana Coastal Erosion: Facts and Figures.” Re-store of Retreat. 2012. <http://www.restoreorretreat.org/coastal_erosion.php>

20Mooney, Chris. “A Scientific Storm Is Brewing Over the Hurricane-Climate Connection.” Mother Jones. July 11, 2013. <http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/07/hurricanes-global-warming-kerry-emanuel>

21 Roach, John. “Is Global Warming Making Hur-ricanes Worse?” National Geographic. August 4, 2005. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0804_050804_hurricanewarming.html>


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figure 11“Coastal Land Loss 1932 (top) 2010 (bottom)”Bob, Marshall. “Lawsuit against Oil and Gas Companies for Coastal Loss.” The Lens. July 23, 2013. <http://thelensnola.org/2013/07/23/science-to-be-key-factor-in-lawsuit-against-oil-and-gas-companies-for-coastal-loss/>edited by author


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figure 12“Major Hurricanes History (since 1851)”Gibney, Ethan J. “Tropical Cyclone Climatology.” National Hurricane Center. Accessed October 18, 2015. <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/>edited by author


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K AT R I N A E X P O S E S

The region’s environmental fragility and the city’s infrastructural deficiencies were laid bare for it’s unsuspecting residents and the world on the last weekend in August 2005. On Friday the 26th, a state of emergency was declared by Governor Kathleen Blanco due to the impending threat: Hurricane Katrina. On Saturday the 27th, following the storm’s dramatic increase in strength due to unusually warm Gulf temperatures, emergency contraflow evacuation plans for the region were activated and the Gulf Coast population mobilized.

On Sunday the 28th, the storm strengthened from a Category 4 to 5 in a matter of hours, and Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a man-datory evacuation of the city of New Orleans. While 15,000 of the remaining 100,000 residents took refuge in the Super Dome Sunday night, intense storm surge was being funneled through the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet and the Intracoastal Waterway into the Industrial Canal. At dawn, with water levels upwards of 16 feet, the western wall breached, failing structurally under the pressure of the storm surge, and flooded the Upper 9th Ward. With the Gulf of Mexico 10-30 feet and Lake Pontchartrain 9 feet above normal levels, the enormous volume of water found relief in the bowl-shaped neighborhoods of New Orleans. Succumb-ing to its unrelenting burden, the eastern wall of the Industrial Canal also breached, inundating the Lower 9th Ward. Shortly thereafter, the London Avenue Canal, the Orleans Avenue Ca-nal, and the 17th Street Canal all either breached or were over-topped, submerging St. Bernard Parish, Jefferson Parish, New Orleans East, Gentilly and Lakeview.22

“The flood-protection and drainage system had not neutralized hydrology and topography; New Orleans’s ancient geographies of hazard, supposedly subjugated by technology generations ago, revealed their obscured relevance. Centuries of manipulat-ing the deltaic plain had allowed the enemy to get too close to the fort. Decades of subsidence had turned the fort into a vulnerable bowl. And years of under-engineered, cavalierly in-spected, and poorly maintained levees had turned the bowl into an impending catastrophe” 23

figure 13“Exposing New Orleans: Katrina Flooding”Anthony, Fontenot, Rosenzweig Jakob, and Schmidt Anne. “NOLA Public Housing Analysis.” Princeton Envelope Group. 2005. <http://www.princetonen-velopegroup.com/2010/07/09/nola-public-housing-analysis/>

22 Campanella, Richard. Delta Urbanism New Orleans, 143-151.



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figure 14“Hurricane Katrina Floods the Southeastern United States : Natural Hazards.” Earth Observatory. August 31, 2005. <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=15429>


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figure 14FloodingBrown, Ben. “Katrina ‘Ten Years After’” PlaceMakers. <http://www.placemakers.com/2015/08/03/katrina-ten-years-after-and-the-band-plays-on/>


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F U T U R E O F A D E LTA C I T Y: W H AT W E ’ V E P R O P O S E D

Immediately after the disaster, Mayor Ray Nagin formed the Bring Back New Orleans (BNOB) Commission who teamed up with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to evaluate and strategize the current situation and the future plans for New Orleans. Some radical responses to the devastation proposed full-scale urban abandonment and relocation, while other more mod-erate schemes embraced the idea of surrendering low-lying neighborhoods to nature while focusing density in a more vi-able urban core. This notion became known as “shrinking the footprint” and was heavily debated and disputed. A recurring theme was the presentation— and misinterpretation— of maps. The first was ULI’s “Rebuilding Plan”24 map which prioritized the recovery and allocation of resources in higher, less damaged ar-eas, covertly advocating for footprint shrinkage. A subsequent map by BNOB, dubbed the “Green Dot Map”25 exhibited six green circles overplayed on top of low-lying neighborhoods, labeled “approximate areas expected to become parks and greenspace.” This set a general precedent for the city’s reaction to any and all redevelopment plans: resistance, disagreement and sometimes even hostility.

In early January 2006, BNOB released a report stating that neighborhoods had just four months to “prove their viability”. This meant that 13 newly formed neighborhood districts would have to convene and discuss visions for their future. Topics up for discussion included the return of sufficient population num-bers, evaluation of FEMA’s “advisory floodplain maps” which af-fected flood-insurance rates, requests for public facilities, and an outline for a buyout program that would allow any residents that could not meet the requirements to receive 100% of their home’s pre-Katrina value from a combination of legislation and private developers. A temporary ban on building permits was also part of the incentive, to discourage homeowners from starting the rebuilding process in case of potential condemna-tion. Even though Mayor Nagin rejected the building morato-rium, fear of being pushed out by developers initiated a sort of patchwork, community driven recovery.26 One example of this smaller scale intervention is Brad Pitt’s Make It Right, founded

24figure 16“ULI’s Investment Zone Map”“New Orleans: A Strategy for Rebuilding.” Urban Land Institute. November 18, 2005. <http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NewOrleans-LA-05-v5.pdf>

25figure 17“BNOB’s Green Dot Map”Krupa, Michelle. “Many Areas Marked for Green Space after Hurricane Katrina Have Rebounded.” Nola.com. August 23, 2010. <http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2010/08/many_areas_marked_for_green_space_after_hurricane_katrina_have_re-bounded.html>

26Russell, Gordon. “On Their Own: In the absense of clear direction, New Orleanians are rebuilding a patchwork city” The Times Picayune, New Orleans. Aug 27, 2006 Newsbank. Web. <http://infoweb.newsbank.com.libproxy.tulane.edu:2048/resources/doc/nb/news/113C6991E4E2EEA0?p=AWNB>.


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three years after the disaster. Upon visiting the Lower 9th Ward, Pitt was surprised and saddened by the lack of recovery and re-building and proposed that a framework of safety, sustainability, quality and affordability could achieve the restoration of a com-munity in need.

The Dutch Dialogues was held three years after Hurricane Ka-trina between Dutch experts and their American peers to dis-cuss the future design and planning of New Orleans. The Dutch visitors’ initial reaction to the city’s landscape was “Where is the water and why is it hidden?”27 This question proved to be a jumping-off point for the strategies that were discussed, re-searched and diagrammed, and took inspiration from the Dutch idea of “Living with Water”. The group chose to begin assum-ing that LACPRA’s (Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority) restoration and strengthening of levees, flood walls and gates, application of new, more robust pump stations, and construction of three storm surge barriers at the edges of the city would happen. Their regional plan consisted of three major points: the redevelopment of existing canals into approachable and accessible bayous, a focus on Gentilly Ridge as natural high ground in the city that could separate two flood control zones, as well as a “super levee” constructed slightly offshore of exist-ing levee on Lake Pontchartrain.28

David Waggoner, a local architect and the initiator of the Dia-logues summarizes: “Our proposal is to create more space for the temporary collection of rainwater. You might call this the ‘neo-Dutch approach’ because this approach- first to hold rain-water, then store it and only discharge it afterwards- has only been recently applied in the Netherlands as well.”29

27figure 18“Framework Water Management Strategy.” H+N+S Land schapsarchitecten. 2011 <http://www.hnsland.nl/nl/projects/urban-water-plan-new-orleans>

28Dutch Dialogues II <http://dutchdialogues.com/2010/05/03/dutch-dialogue-2/>

29Metz, Tracy and Maartje van den Heuvel. Sweet & Salt, 240.


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E F F E C T I V E M O D E L S

The Netherlands and New Orleans are in many ways compara-ble. They are both situated on deltas littered with waterways and marshes formed by powerful and important rivers. They’ve each deployed numerous infrastructural and hydrological strategies in order to develop urban and suburban areas. Both are vulner-able to tides and storm surge, the Dutch from the North Sea, and New Orleans from the Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain. Each has designed and implemented water management systems to respond to climate; the Netherlands are subject to gradual sea-sonal flooding while New Orleans has to prepare for sudden heavy rain and storm induced flash flooding. And finally, both are threatened by world-wide sea level rise paired with subsid-ence caused by the collapse of porous deltaic sediment.

The Dutch have a long history of “making a small country big-ger”30 with the use of dikes and polders. A dike is similar to the earthen levees in New Orleans, mounds of earth that separate dry land from wet. A polder, or “land reclaimed by building a dike and then pumping the water out”30, is not unlike the low-ly-ing drained-swamp neighborhoods like Lakeview and Gentilly in New Orleans. Even though the Netherlands contains over 3000 km of defensive dikes at the edges of rivers, lakes and the sea, as well as 13000 km of inland dikes, no significant polders have been constructed since the 1990’s.31 This is due to the realization that “impoldering” has caused dangerous changes in the land-scape. The same type of subsidence that has been occurring in New Orleans for a century has also caused the polders to sink below sea level, adding stress to the already heroic drainage system and exaggerating the impending threat of flooding.

A new paradigm has been defined in the Netherlands that chal-lenges the history of humans fighting water in their landscape by encouraging accommodation and integration; it is named Living with Water. In the face of shared environmental crises, can we learn from our predecessors, innovators in the field of water management, landscape architecture, flood protection and urban design?



figure 19“Tectonics of the Dutch Lowlands”Reh, Wouter, and Clemens M. Steenbergen. Sea of Land: The Polder as an Experimental Atlas of Dutch Landscape Architecture. Wormer: Stichting Uitge-verij Noord-Holland, 2007.edited by author


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figure 20“City Environs: Solid & Void”Amsterdam (top) New Orleans (bottom)Berman, Ila, and Mona El Khafif. URBANbuild: local / global, 380.


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R E D E F I N I N G R E S I L I E N C E : A S C A L E D A P P R O A C H

The two most significant environmental issues in New Orleans are subsidence— interior— and sea level rise— exterior. The combination of these two put us at risk of infiltration and in some places, permanent submersion. Taking precedent from the Dutch approach, Living With Water, we can slowly incorpo-rate water into more neighborhoods in the city, specifically the low-lying ones that reside below sea level. At the moment, wa-ter is only perceived from behind a wall. To combat the idea of hiding water, which leads us to disregard its significance and potential threat, how can we integrate water into a typical New Orleans neighborhood?

A neighborhood scale water retention system, one that feeds in to and supplements the larger more established drainage canals, can begin to assign more area for water storage in the event of a storm or flooding event. A flood event would be ad-verse in almost all low-lying New Orleans neighborhoods: not only are most houses sitting on slab on grade, but they are also slowly sinking. Adding surface water would serve to raise wa-ter table levels, effectively reducing subsidence by filling empty spaces in porous soils. To further benefit from a greater volume of water within the urban fabric, methods of natural filtration and remediation can be explored. Scaled water treatment pro-posals can provide a prototype for other abandoned or unused spaces in the city and could potentially culminate in a fully rede-fined system of water management.

What are the benefits and disadvantages to implementing a pixelated plan, dependent on the individual, the block or the neighborhood rather than an over-arching approach? There is a history of individualized development in New Orleans, from the colonial requirement for land owners to built and fortify their own levees, to the post-Katrina incentive for neighborhoods to “prove their worth” and viability in order to receive aid from the government. In order to create a model for a building and its surrounding plot of land to be resilient, we need to deal with the threat of flooding, land subsidence, and extreme weather from an individual level.

figure 21image by author


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W A T E R NETWORK N O D E+ +


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A N N O TAT E D B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Beatley, Timothy. “Chapter 4: Urban Design for a Blue Planet.” In Blue Urbanism: Exploring Connections between Cities and Oceans. Washington DC: Island Press, 2014.

Beatley argues for “blue urbanism” in response to and in tan-dem with “green urbanism”, which has seen success in the last decade in cities and planning around the world. He demands for a more complimentary, sustainable and reciprocal relation-ship between cities and the waters that surround them. In the context of cities such as Toronto, Seattle, New York City, Rot-terdam, Amsterdam, and Oslo, Beatley examines the success-es and failures of a new strategy for reestablishing the rela-tionship between urbanity and the water systems around it.

Berman, Ila, and Mona El Khafif. URBANbuild: local / global. Richmond: William Stout Publishers, 2008.

Berman and the URBANbuild team systematically research, document, and analyze the city of New Orleans in terms of its urban, cultural, infrastructural, and environmental layers in order to form an integrated approach for rehabilitation af-ter the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Operating at three different scales, city, neighborhood and individual building, enables potential solutions to be cross disciplinary and syn-ergetic. Investigations are also made in a global perspective, informing and contextualizing the exclusive local studies with research from precedent water cities around the world. Es-tablishing a local-global framework is essential to propose a comprehensive strategy for redeveloping New Orleans.

Campanella, Richard. Delta Urbanism: New Orleans. Chicago: American Planning Association, 2010.

Coastal ports and deltaic cities around the world are being confronted with enviornmental risks such as erosion, sea level rise, soil subsidence and intensifying tropical activity. In order to graple with the question of sustaining coastal cities in response to shared crises, Campanella traces the foundation, history and development of New Orleans as a sort of case study for a new delta urbanism.


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Colten, Craig E. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.

Examining the fundamental struggle to make a city habit-able, specifically to transform the location of New Orleans from a flood-prone, ill-drained, mosquito infested site into a metropolis. Urban development has had to deal end-lessly with nature, and has taken shape in a continuous ef-fort to squeeze undesirable aspects of environment out of the setting. New Orleans has so thoroughly reworked its original setting that one could call it the “unnatural city”.

Metz, Tracy, and Maartje van den Heuvel. Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2012.

“No element is as intrinsic to the Dutch cultural identity as water.” Centuries of dealing and designing with water has made the Dutch experts in the field. Engineers, hydrologists, architects and land-scapers are now challenged with the effects of climate change: swelling rivers, wetter weather and sea levels rising. Instead of fighting the water, a new relationship with water is being fash-ioned where integration, flexibility and cooperation are the focus.

Meyer, Han, Dale Morris, and David Waggonner. Dutch Dialogues: New Orleans, Netherlands: Common Challenges in Urbanized Deltas. Amsterdam: SUN, 2009.

In October of 2008, three years after Hurricane Katrina, Dutch ambassadors and their American peers came together to form the Dutch Dialogues, drawing contrasts and comparisons be-tween the Netherlands and New Orleans, and illustrating an approach to the redevelopment of New Orleans. Inspired by “Living with Water”, the recently implemented Dutch strategy for reaping the benefits and dealing with the challenges of the dynamic relationship between water and cities, unique opportu-nities were revealed and a comprehensive plan was developed to transform New Orleans from a “walled” city to a “water” city.


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P R E C E D E N T R E S E A R C H& C A S E S T U DY A N A LY S I S

AMPHIBIOUS ARCHITECTURE& INTEGRATED URBAN DESIGN


39


40

“Floating House / MOS Architects” 29 Dec 2008. ArchDaily. <http://www.archdaily.com/10842/floating-house-mos/>

section model & west and north elevations

Grau, Dieter, and Zoe Ryan. Building with Water. Basel: De Gruyter, 2010.

section & views from water

How it Works

The river and ground water are hydrologically linked. During a flood, as the River Thames rises so will the ground water on the island. The dock fills gradually from the ground, gently raising the building, as the river level rises. When the water is just below the ground level the house becomes buoyant. The house can rise upto 2.7m to cope with a 1 in 100 flood event. The guide posts extend almost 4m above the ground level such that in the event of an even bigger flood the house would still be retained between the posts.

The flexible pipes are designed to extend up to 3m allowing all of the services to remain clean and operational during any flood event and crucially to allow the occupants to return to the property immediately after a flood, maximising the continuity of their daily lives.

MaintenanceThe Amphibious House is designed with minimal moving parts but like any house it requires maintenance and like a car or a boat it requires testing. The house may not float for several years therefore it is important to proactively test and maintain the can-float base and flotation system to ensure that the parts are in good working order, ready for when a flood occurs.

Every five years the dock will be pumped full of water to repeat the flotation test when the house will rise up to 50 cm to test the integrity and free movement, before the water is slowly released and the building allowed to touch down again.

The house is equal in weight to 170 carsArchimedes Principle

M displaced water

Wheight of water moved compared to utilitary car weight

F = M buoyancy displaced water

F buoyancy

F gravity

Formosa, The Amphibious House© Baca Architects 2014

FLOATING POSITION

STATIC POSITION

RIVER WATER LEVEL +24.80

GROUND LEVEL +26.20

1% AEP WITH CLIMATE CHANGE ALLOWANCE(+20% ON RIVERFLOWS): +28.42

BUOYANCY LEVEL +25.70

GROUND FLOOR OF THE HOUSE IN STATIC POSITION

2500

300

900

3200

400

visualization of rising floodwater

How it Works






M displaced water



F buoyancy

F gravity


FLOATING POSITION

STATIC POSITION


GROUND LEVEL +26.20




2500

300

900

3200

400

How it Works






M displaced water



F buoyancy

F gravity


FLOATING POSITION

STATIC POSITION


GROUND LEVEL +26.20




2500

300

900

3200

400

“Life with Water: Amphibious House.” Baca Architects. <http://www.baca.uk.com/index.php/living-on-water/amphibious-house>.


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F L O AT I N G H O U S EMos ArchitectsLake Huron, Point Ai Baril, Ontario, Canada2007

A house that floats on a pontoon off of a remote island north of Toronto, serves as a connection between two landforms while imperceptably changing with the fluctuating water elevation.

A L U M I N U M F O R R E S TAbbink X De Haas ArchitecturesHouten, Urecht, The Netherlands2002

A headquarters for Stichting Aluminum Centrum is raised on 368 aluminum pilotis ranging from 4-8 inches in diameter. This build-ing references the polder-strewn Dutch landscpape while ad-vertising the advantages of aluminum construction: lightweight, recyclable, thermally independent, strong and stable.

Baca Architects describe an amphibious structure as one “thatrests on the ground but whenever a flood occurs, the entire building rises up in its dock, where it floats, buoyedby the floodwater.”1

T H E A M P H I B I O U S H O U S EBaca Architects Marlow, Engand2014

concept diagram by author


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The Netherlands have a unique relationship to water, compa-rable in almost every way to New Orleans. This Dutch delta is affected by flooding from storm surges from the North Sea (much like Lake Ponchartrain), heavy rainfall (climate influenced by vicinity to water), global rising sea levels, and subsidence of the naturally soft and porous deltaic sediment. Over half of the country is located below sea level.1 The Dutch have an exten-sive history of land conservation and production, implementing infrastructural systems such as dykes, pumping stations, canals and locks to both manage and protect themselves from water.

Nesselande is a suburb in a polder northeast of Rotterdam, stimulated by the lake Zevenhuizerplas. Polders are a type of drained agricultural land, separated from surrounding water sources by controlled drainage canals and dikes.2 This polder suburb is crossed by three main dykes that also function as road-ways. Large islands with excavated channels like ditches create individual plots that are connected to the dyke/road by smaller land bridges.

There are three different typologies of houses in Nesselande, the first is a platform house, raised on stilts sitting completely in the water. The second is similarly raised on piloti but half on land and half over water. The third sits on a small bed of raised land next to the water.

N E S S E L A N D EDutch Polder Cities: Artificial Hydrological EntitiesPalmbout Urban Landscapes2000

1 Berman, Ila, and Mona El Khafif. URBANbuild: local/ global. Richmond: William Stout Publishers, 2008.

2 Nillesen, Anne Loes, and Jeroen Singelenberg. “Ch 6: Projects: Nesselande” In Waterwonen in Neder-land: Amphibious Housing in the Netherlands, 81-85. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers, 2011.

3 “Rotterdam Nesselande.” PALMBOUT Urban Land-scapes. <http://palmbout.nl/projecten/>.

above diagram by palmboutclockwise from left: island plot / quadrant / apartment complex / houseboat / platform home / free islandaerial view of polder


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site sections showing dyke + canal + garden + road + housediagram by author

panoramic view from road + dyke

community plan showing water + floating properties + dykes & roads + greenspacediagram by author

housing typologies


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The current approach to water in New Orleans is to avoid and ignore. By pumping out every drop of water that falls on the city’s soil, imbalances occur in the relationships between water, land, city and people. A new approach to water storage and management designates more room for water in a dry city:

SLOW: Rooftops, driveways, streets, and sidewalks can be re-designed to catch rain where it falls, and to allow some of that water to soak into the ground

STORE: Large scale detention and retention features integrated into canal networks and public spaces provide additional stor-age capacity.

DRAIN: Pumping should not be the only solution for managing stormwater but it times of heavy rainfall or emergency, water can be exported to exterior waterbodies

U R B A N W AT E R P L A NGreater New Orleans Lead by Waggoner & Ball Architects2012

1 “Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan.” Living With Water: A New Vision for Delta Cities. <http://livingwithwater.com>

2 “Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan.” Wag-gonner & Ball Architects. <http://www.wbarchitects.com/urban-design/greater_new_orleans_water_management_strategy/>

3 “Oplossing Kwaliteits Impuls (Solution and Quality Boost)” H+N+S Landschapsarchitecten. <http://www.hnsland.nl/nl/projects/urban-water-plan-new-orleans>

problematic low areas

underground drainage networks focus on rapid discharge

current vs proposed outfall canal conditions


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PAVE PIPE PUMP

SLOW STORE DRAIN

PAVE PIPE PUMP

SLOW STORE DRAIN

Framework for a new Water Management Strategy

current vs proposed water management strategiesimage by author


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A M P H I B I O U S TA C T I C S

Studio Investigation with Marc TsurumakiEverglades National Park, Florida

A studio exploring the dialogue between architecture and environ-ment, “the constructed and the natural”1, proposes a national park hotel/lodge in the midst of the Ev-erglade swamp.

The lodge seeks to compensate for the National Park’s desire to use nature as recreation to pro-mote tourism while at the same time preserving and protecting a volatile ecosystem. It is interest-ing to examine the ways that archi-tecture, which is rigid, static, and fixed, can intersect and interact with water, which is fluid, flexible and dynamic.

Tsurumaki describes the Ever-glades as “neither land nor wa-ter,”1 but a sort of extremely slow moving and shallow river. There are similarities between the Ever-glades ecosystem and the environ-ment produced by the Mississippi River’s influence on New Orleans. An infrastructural undertaking, called the “Central and Southern Florida Project” effectively cut the Everglades off from its water source, reduced the land area by half, and caused droughts, fires and disease.

1 Rappaport, Nina. “Marc Tsurumaki: Amphibious Tactics.” In Negotiated Terrains, 104-142. New Haven, Conn.: Yale School of Architecture, 2009.

Infrastructural Terrains: Allan Slamic

Datum: Heather Loeffler

Infrastructural Terrains: Anya A Grant


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Allen Slamic interprets a transportation network as the framework for his pro-posal. He seeks to connect the lodge to a larger series of existing trails and roads. By giving priority to parking and an RV campground, he provides visi-tors with multiple options: to drive through, to camp, or to stay at the prefab-ricated lodges. He also incorporates a trellis that ties seperate program parts together, provides shade and natural cooling from the harsh climate, and invigorates the connection between architecture and nature.

Heather Loeffler applies a datum to the natural systems in the park by rais-ing her proposal up, creating three permeable layers: a floating dock, lobby / guest rooms / information and services, and a recreational roof deck. In-ground hammocks and skylights allow for connections between layers. A ramp allows access to parking while a floating dock system enables visitors to enter the water.

Anya Grant defines a hydrological network as the framework for her project. She focuses on surface-treatment wetlands, imposing culverts through the existing levee and adding beds of remidiative plants that purify agricultural runoff as well as gray water from the lodge. Instead of raising her project on thin stilts, she instead creates concrete plinths that serve as a hidden super-structure for the rooms as well as the parking.


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P R O G R A M A N A LY S I S

INSERTING ‘WET’ PROGRAM INTO A ‘DRY’ NEIGHBORHOOD


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F I LT R AT I O N F A C I L I T Y

The modification of residential neighborhoods to better accom-modate and integrate water should begin with a network of re-newed drainage and water storage.

At the termination of the new water and pedestrian axes, a fil-tration center could provide an example of ideal construction methods and serve as an environmental core where water and people culminate and where water is stored, filtered and then pumped into the larger system. A constructed wetland would help slow water down in the event of heavy rain, and function as a sort of display of storage and management techniques for the neighborhood.

constructed wetlands horizontal subsurface flow basin 5000 ft vertical flow basin 5000 ft surface flow basin 10000 ft total 20000 ftwater treatment facility ultra violet filtration room 2000 ft pumps 2000 ft groundskeeping / storage / mechanical 1200 ft

education / recreation changing rooms 2000 ft interactive installations 4000 ft observation decks 1000 ft refreshment bar 800 ft kitchen 800 ft administrative offices 1200 ft lobby 1000 ft total 12000 ft

NATURALIZED WATER STORAGE AND MANAGEMENT


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ADVANCED WATER PURIFICATION FACILITY

Mainstreet Architects & PlannersOxnard, Calinfornia2013

In coordination with the Groundwater Recovery Enhancement and Treatment program (GREAT), the city of Oxnard reduces its impact on California’s stressed water sources by using reclaimed water instead of importing it. This purification facility will provide 25 million gallons a day for landscape or agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, or groundwater recharge. The building also incorporates multiple “green” features such as recycled build-ing materials, natural ventilation systems, permeable paving, water conserving native plants and photo voltaic solar panels.

water treatment facility wet well 1900 ft2

pump floor 1900 ft2

electrical room #1 2000 ft2

electrical room #2 650 ft2

micro filtration/ ultra filtration building 7200 ft2

reverse osmosis building 10400 ft2

ultraviolet treatment facility 2200 ft2

decarbonators & finished water pumps 4000 ft2

chemical storage containment area 4000 ft2

constructed wetland 50000 ft2

education / administration administrative offices 2400 ft2

gallery 1200 ft2

auditorium 1200 ft2

total 90000 ft2

http://www.archdaily.com/451678/advanced-water-purification-facility-mainstreet-architects-planners-inchttp://www.mainstreetarchitects.com/projects/government_institutional/index.html


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Q U N L I W E T L A N D PA R K

TurenscapeHaerbin, Heilongjiang, China2010

Turenscape revives a dying wetland, cut off on four sides by paved highways and development, into an “urban storm water park”. They created a “necklace” of ponds and mounds to sur-round the current wetland, which serve as a filtering and cleans-ing buffer zone between nature and city. A series of pathways, raised boardwalks, and viewing towers allow visitors to experi-ence the wetland, and provide structure for the different filter-ing ponds.

grounded pathwaysraised walkwaysfiltration pondsseperation burmsviewing towers

total area: 30 hectares or 3,200,000 ft2

http://www.archdaily.com/446025/qunli-stormwater-wetland-park-turenscape?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=more-from-office-article-showhttp://www.turenscape.com/english/projects/project.php?id=435


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C O L U M B I A W A S T E W AT E R T R E AT M E N T S U P P O R T F A C I L I T YSkylab ArchitecturePortland, Oregon2012

http://www.archdaily.com/451678/advanced-water-purification-facility-mainstreet-architects-planners-inchttp://www.skylabarchitecture.com/#/columbiabuilding/

Offices for the Bureau of Environmental Services engineering and construction management staff is oriented radially along the path of the sun. Site strategies mimic native habitats and provides an interactive, educational depiction of current water treatment programs. The building’s vegetated roof, or “encor-oof” is an approachable example of sustainable storm water management for the city of Portland.

landscape berms 8000 ft2

fractured basalt runoff bed 2500 ft2

vegetated roof 16000 ft2

lobby / entry / reception 1500 ft2

workspace 5000 ft2

meeting spaces 1700 ft2

resource room 2 @ 300 ft 600 ft2

restrooms 2 @ 150 ft 300 ft2

conference room 3 @ 100ft 300 ft2

total 12000 ft2


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A I Y I R I V E R W AT E R F R O N T PA R K

BLVD InternationalYinchuan, Ningxia, China2013

http://www.archdaily.com/558663/waterfront-park-of-aiyi-river-blvd-international

In order to emphasize and utilize the ecological borders of a new area of the city Yinchuan, a serpentine pedestrian walkway not only ties together the city and the waterfront, but creates intimate as well as panoramic recreational experiences. The dy-namic urban pathway is defined by a series of level changes: at water level, slightly below the surface, and perched above the treetops.

total area 630000 ft2


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S I T E A N A LY S I S

LOW, WET AND SINKING


55

S I T E C R I T E R I A

A closer look at the topographical, environmental, hydrologi-cal and infrastructural characteristics of New Orleans allows us to narrow in on the neighborhoods with the lowest elevations, most dramatic subsidence and greatest threat for future flood-ing. Criteria for site selection is based on four points:

1 L O W E L E V AT I O N current elevation at least 3 feet below sea level

2 E X P E R I E N C I N G L A N D S U B S I D E N C E sinking at least 1/8 of an inch per year

3 E X I S T I N G N E U T R A L G R O U N D a typology of unoccupied green medians along most important roadways in the City

4 ‘ D R Y ’ N E I G H B O R H O O D area at least 6 blocks from nearest open water feature but with opportunity to connect

REDEFINING RESILIENCY IN AREAS AT RISK


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above 12’9’ -12’6‘ - 9’3’ - 6’0’ - 3’-3’ - 0’-3’ - -6’below -6’

C I T Y T O P O G R A P H Y

Ground Elevations Relative to Sea Level


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L O W G R O U N DELEVATION-BASED FLOOD INSURANCE ZONES

T O P O G R A P H YGROUND ELEVATION RELATIVE TO SEA LEVEL

above 12’

9’ -12’

6‘ - 9’

3’ - 6’

0’ - 3’

-3’ - 0’

-3’ - -6’

below -6’

C I T Y

N E I G H B O R H O O D

G R E E N T O B L U EWEAVING CIRCULATION OF WATER AND PEOPLE

P R O P O S A L

Natural high ground occurs along the Missis-sippi River with lowlands near Lake Pontchar-train

Over 60% of the city’s population lives below sea level

Lakeview’s average elevation is around -4 feet below sea level

Over 50% of the neighborhood is assigned Flood Insurance Zone AE which means there is a 1% chance of flooding per year, other-wise referred to as a 100-year floodplain

Creating more deisgnated space for water in a neighborhood that suffers from flooding

Providing connectivity for pedestrians in the neighborhood

N E I G H B O R H O O D L O W G R O U N D

Elevation-Based Flood Insurance Zones


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1/2”1/3”1/4”1/8”1/16”

inches per year

C I T Y S U B S I D E N C E

Sinkage in the Last Century


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N E I G H B O R H O O D H I G H G R O U N D

H I G H G R O U N DNEIGHBORHOOD SECTIONS

C I T Y

1/2” 1/3” 1/4” 1/8” 1/16” inches per year

S U B S I D E N C ESINKAGE IN THE LAST CENTURY


S U R F A C E F L O WSLOWING AND STORING WATER

P R O P O S A L

In the early 20th century, advancements in infrastructural technology allowed for the back swamps to be drained and developed

Eliminating water from the porous sediment caused it to settle and sink, and in a few decades, parts of Lakeview and Gentilly had sunk 3 to 6 feet below sea level

West End Boulevard’s neutral ground is at the highest elevation in the area

Both West End and Lakeview neighbor-hoods form “bowls” with the 17th Street Canal levee, West End Boulevard and Canal Boulevard as “rims”

Adding surface water in this neighborhood raises water table levels which helps to prevent soil subsidence

Lateral Sections Showing High and Low Ground


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extra large

large

medium

small

west end blvd 350’

canal blvd

95’

elysian fields ave 95’

claiborne ave 75’

franklin ave 65‘

napolean ave 45’

mlk jr blvd 45’

broadway st 8‘

jefferson ave 8’

C I T Y N E U T R A L G R O U N D S

A Typology of Scaled Medians


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D I S R U P T E D G R I DDIVISION AND SEPARATION OF THE STREET GRID

C I T Y

N E U T R A L G R O U N D SA TYPOLOGY OF SCALED MEDIANS


P R O T O T Y P ESLOWING AND STORING WATER

P R O P O S A L



West End Boulevard’s neutral ground is at the highest elevation in the area

Both West End and Lakeview neighbor-hoods form “bowls” with the 17th Street Canal levee, West End Boulevard and Canal Boulevard as “rims”

Adding surface water raises ground water and water table levels which helps to prevent soil subsidence

extra large west end blvd 350’

large canal blvd 95’ claiborne ave 75’

medium franklin ave 65’ napoleon ave 45’

small broadway st 8’ jefferson ave 8’

350’ 8’45’95’

N E I G H B O R H O O D D I S R U P T E D G R I D

Division and Separation of the Street Grid


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C I T Y “ PA V E , P I P E , P U M P ”

Water Management Systems

pump station

drainage zone

water flow

drainage


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N E I G H B O R H O O D S U B S U R F A C E N E T W O R K

pump station drainage zone water flow drainage network

S U B S U R F A C E N E T W O R KUNDERGROUND DRAINAGE AND THE STREET GRID

C I T Y

“ P A V E , P I P E , P U M P ”WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS


P R O T O T Y P ESLOWING AND STORING WATER

P R O P O S A L

The city is divided into drainage subbasins with intricate and segregated subsurface piping systems

Pump stations push water into drainage canals that direct water into the Lake

Subbasin #12 contains 1250 acres of land that handles around 3,200,000 gallons of water in a heavy rain event

Currently, water travels with natural slope in the area into main pipes underneath Fleur de Lis Blvd and Canal Blvd respectively

Surface drainage can be implimented to direct water to the new canal and take pres-sure off of the existing system

The proposed network reclaims 470 acres of the subbasin and diverts over a third of the normal volume of water


current subsurface drainage current water flow direction

new water flow directionunaffected subsurface drainage

to orleans ave canalto 17th street canal

Underground Drainage Routes


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A B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F L A K E V I E W

The opening of the New Basin Canal in 1828 provided a ma-jor shipping and drainage artery, that stretched from the French Quarter to the Lakefront. It was 60’ wide and 8’ deep initially, and was widened to 100’ by 10’ deep. The map to the left from 1919 shows the canal which was initially called the New Orleans Navigation Canal.

Alongside the canal ran the West End Street Car that brought city dwellers out into the yet untouched swamp land of Lakev-iew and Metairie and to the Lakefront, Pontchartrain Beach, the Marina, the Southern Yacht Club and Spanish Fort.1

FACTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

1 Campanella, Catherine. “West End.” Images of America: Lake Pontchartrain. < http://www.websitesneworleans.com/lakepontchartrainimagesofameri-ca/id75.html>

2“1919 Map of Canals” < http://www.websitesne-worleans.com/lakepontchartrainimagesofamerica/id90.html>

31942 West End Street Car1947 Aerial of New Basin CanalAlexander Allison Collection, New Orleans. By Alex-ander Allison. New Orleans Public Library, Louisiana Division. <http://nutrias.org/~nopl/photos/allison/allison.htm>.


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11948 West End Street Car with Stops along Canal

PhotographsNew Orleans Streetcar Album. By H. George Fried-man, Jr. circa 1948. University of Illinois. <http://web.engr.illinois.edu/~friedman/album/Album.htm>.

21950 Plan for West End Boulevard

31954 Progress of Interstate 10 Development

PhotographsAlexander Allison Collection, New Orleans. By Al-exander Allison circa 1953. New Orleans Public Li-brary, Louisiana Division. <http://nutrias.org/~nopl/photos/allison/allison.htm>.


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The Canal was gradually filled, starting in the 1950’s, and the portion nearest the lake was paved to create the Pontchartrain Expressway (also called West End Boulevard) which connects di-rectly to Interstate 10.

Although the four lane highway improved traffic in the area, the 350’ wide neutral ground in between the right of way created a disconnect in the neighborhood: a boundary between Lakeview and West End.


68

C O N C E P T U A L A N A LY S I S

Currently, the West End Boulevard neutral ground is a 350’ wide largely unused green space. It is home to sparse vegetation and a bike path that favors one side of the community over the oth-er. By incorporating a new canal for water retention and a woven pedestrian network for increased connectivity,

1 W E A V I N G W AT E R A N D P E O P L E creating designated space for water in a neighborhood that suffers from flooding

providing connectivity for pedestrians in the area

2 S L O W I N G A N D S T O R I N G W AT E R

adding surface water raises ground water and water table levels which helps to prevent soil subsidence

permanent water storage also helps with street flooding by providing more space for runoff during heavy rain

3 S C A L E D I N T E R V E N T I O N S

by categorizing the city’s neutral grounds into four sizes: extra large, large, medium and small, water interventions can be scaled and replicated

exposing water processes allows for a new intimacy and connectivity between land, water and people

4 E X P O S I N G W AT E R P R O C E S S E S

water movement, storage and drainage are hidden behind walls or underneath the ground

by merging public amenity with public awareness, and by accepting and accommodating water within the urban fabric, new orleans can redefine resilience

INVIGORATING UNDERUTILIZED GREEN SPACE


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350’ 8’45’95’

before

after

before

after

extra large large medium small

before

after


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71

DRY: REFRESHMENT BAR

WET: KAYAK RENTAL SHOP AND LAUNCH DOCK

DRY: SKATE PARK

WET: SPLASH POOL

DRY: PICNIC AREA

WET: SPRINKLER PARK

PROTOTYPE: LARGECANAL BLVD: 95’

PROTOTYPE: MEDIUMNAPOLEAN AVE: 75’

PROTOTYPE: SMALLCARROLLTON AVE: 20’

S I T E S T R AT E G YNEW CANAL + SCALED INTERVENTIONS


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B U I L D I N G S T R AT E G Y

TRANSFORMING A PECULIARITY INTO AN EXTRAORDINARY WATER FEATURE

A distinct structure is located on the northernmost portion of the West End Boulevard neutral ground: the abandoned Civil Defense Control Center. Constructed after WWII, it is a partial-ly underground bunker around which an artificial hill was con-structed for protection in the event of an emergency.

I am proposing to repurpose this unique building as a natato-rium. Filtered and swimmable water would be pumped in from a series of constructed wetlands, existing in flux with seasonal rain amounts. Some days, the pool would be full, others, merely a puddle. The hill would remain as a lookout, celebrating this site as simultaneously the highest and lowest points in the neigh-borhood.

drawings courtesy of Stoffle & Finger Architects


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74


75

SECTION ANATATORIUM

SECTION BSAUNA & CAULDARIUM

SECTION CUV FILTRATION AND PUMP ROOM

SECTION DCHANGING ROOMS

SECTION EENTRY & ADMINISTRATION


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+4 ‘ BASE ELEVATION

0‘ GROUND

+20 ‘ HIGHEST ELEVATION

-10‘ TYPICAL WATER TABLE LEVEL


77


78


79


80


81


82

L O W G R O U N DELEVATION-BASED FLOOD INSURANCE ZONES

T O P O G R A P H YGROUND ELEVATION RELATIVE TO SEA LEVEL

C I T Y N E I G H B O R H O O D

G R E E N T O B L U EWEAVING CIRCULATION OF WATER AND PEOPLE

P R O P O S A L

Natural high ground occurs along the Mississippi River with lowlands near Lake Pontchartrain

Over 60% of the city’s population lives below sea level

Lakeview’s average elevation is around -4 feet below sea level

Over 50% of the neighborhood is assigned Flood Insurance Zone AE which means there is a 1% chance of flooding per year, otherwise referred to as a 100-year floodplain

Creating more designated space for water in a neighborhood that suffers from flooding

Providing connectivity for pedestrians in the neighborhood

above 12’

9’ -12’

6‘ - 9’

3’ - 6’

0’ - 3’

-3’ - 0’

-3’ - -6’

below -6’

H I G H G R O U N DNEIGHBORHOOD SECTIONS

C I T Y

S U B S I D E N C ESINKAGE IN THE LAST CENTURY


S U R F A C E F L O WSLOWING AND STORING WATER

P R O P O S A L



West End Boulevard’s neutral ground is at the highest eleva-tion in the area

Both West End and Lakeview neighborhoods form “bowls” with the 17th Street Canal levee, West End Boulevard and Canal Boulevard as “rims”


Permanent water storage also helps with street flooding by providing more space for water during heavy rain

1/2” 1/3” 1/4” 1/8” 1/16” per year

350’ 8’45’95’

D I S R U P T E D G R I DDIVISION AND SEPARATION OF THE STREET GRID

C I T Y

N E U T R A L G R O U N D SA TYPOLOGY OF SCALED MEDIANS


P R O T O T Y P ESCALED AND REPLICABLE INTERVENTIONS

P R O P O S A L

Important streets in New Orleans are typically divided by a median, or “neutral ground” which is usually planted and can range in width from 3 feet to 350 feet

Occasionally containing street cars or bike paths, these public spaces are largly underutilized

West End Boulevard is 350’ wide and serves as a barrier between the neighborhoods of West End and Lakeview

There is currently a limited amount of streets and paths that cross the median, creating a feeling of separation in the area

By catagorizing the City’s neutral grounds into four sizes: Extra Large, Large, Medium and Small, water interven-tions can be scaled and replicated

Exposing water processes allows for a new intimacy and connectivity between land, water, and people in the city

extra large west end blvd 350’

large canal blvd 95’ claiborne ave 75’

medium franklin ave 65’ napoleon ave 45’

small broadway st 8’ jefferson ave 8’

to orleans ave canalto 17th street canal

S U B S U R F A C E N E T W O R KUNDERGROUND DRAINAGE AND THE STREET GRID

“ P A V E , P I P E , P U M P ”WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

N E I G H B O R H O O DC I T Y

D R Y T O W E TEXPOSING PREVIOUSLY CONCEALED WATER PROCESSES

P R O P O S A L

The city is divided into drainage subbasins with intricate and segregated subsurface piping systems

Pump stations push water into drainage canals that direct water into the Lake

Subbasin #12 contains 1250 acres of land that handles around 3,200,000 gallons of water in a heavy rain event

Currently, water travels with natural slope in the area into main pipes underneath Fleur de Lis Blvd and Canal Blvd respectively

Surface drainage can be implimented to direct water to the new canal and take pressure off of the existing system

The proposed network reclaims 470 acres of the subbasin and diverts over a third of the normal volume of water

Water movement, storage, and drainage are hidden behind walls or underneath the ground

By merging public amenity with public awareness, and by accepting and accomodating water within the urban fabric, New Orleans can start to define a new resilience

pump station drainage zone water flow drainage current subsurface drainage current water flow directionnew water flow directionunaffected subsurface drainage

S TAT E M E N T

Resiliency in New Orleans must be redefined by converting an existing, rigid, and defensive approach to water management to a more integrated, flexible, and reciprocal strategy of urban planning. By mer-gring public amenity with public awareness, rightful authoirty can be given back to the natural systems of our chosen milieu through the recognition of flux as an element of design.

REMEDIATION AND RECREATION IN NEW ORLEANS WATER SYSTEMS

R E S I L I E N C Y R E V I S E D

PROTOTYPE: LARGECANAL BLVD: 95’

PROTOTYPE: MEDIUMNAPOLEAN AVE: 75’

PROTOTYPE: SMALLCARROLLTON AVE: 20’

ANOMOLY: EXTRA LARGEWEST END BLVD: 350’

DRY: REFRESHMENT BAR

WET: KAYAK RENTAL SHOP AND LAUNCH DOCK

DRY: SKATE PARK

WET: SPLASH POOL

DRY: PICNIC AREA

WET: SPRINKLER PARK

ROOF PLAN1” = 32’

TACTILE EXPERIENCEVISUAL EXPERIENCE RECREATIONVISUAL EXPERIENCE HORIZONTAL SUBSURFACE FLOWSURFACE FLOW VERTICAL FLOWULTRA VIOLET RADIATION RETENTIONSUITABLE FOR USE

REMEDIATIONMOVEMENT OF WATER

RECREATION MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE

SITE PLAN1’ = 1/256”

INTERVENTION PERSPECTIVESINTERVENTION PLANS1’ = 1/16”


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MECHANICAL CONTROL ROOM

GROUNDSKEEPING/ MAINTENANCE

PUMPS

ULTRAVIOLET FILTRATION BED

WOMEN’S LOCKER ROOM

MEN’S LOCKER ROOM

LOBBY

FRONT DESK

ADMINISTRATION OFFICES

CAULDARIUM

SAUNA

NATATORIUM

REFLEXOLOGY WALK

MAINTENANCE ENTRANCE

SECTION A

SECTION B

SECTION C

SECTION D

SECTION E

SECTION ANATATORIUM

SECTION BSAUNA & CAULDARIUM

SECTION CUV FILTRATION AND PUMP ROOM

SECTION DCHANGING ROOMS

SECTION EENTRY & ADMINISTRATION

+4 ‘ BASE ELEVATION

0‘ GROUND

+20 ‘ HIGHEST ELEVATION

-10‘ TYPICAL WATER TABLE LEVEL

LONGITUDINAL SECTION1’ = 3/32”

LATERAL SECTIONS1’ = 1/8”

NATATORIUM PLAN1’ = 1/16”

F I N A L B O A R D


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Resiliency Revised: Remediation and Recreation in New Orleans Water Systems

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