Brad Pitt Commissions Designs for New Orleans

by Jarrett Martineau | December 3, 2007 at 01:14 pm

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Brad Pitt Commissions Designs for New Orleans

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The global Jolie-Pitt / Pitt-Jolie humanitarian mission continues.

Yet, for all of the criticism that Hollywood stars receive when they prattle on about saving the world through various self-created charities and foundations to help the needy, at least some of them are actually putting their ideas into action in a meaningful way.

I'm especially encouraged to see that Pitt has chosen to partner with William McDonough who, in my mind, is a truly compassionate and visionary designer as well as "a tireless proponent of absolute sustainability [through] his philosophy of "cradle to cradle" design,
which bridge the needs of ecology and economics."

Not only that, but Pitt and McDonough are teaming up to create low-income housing in an American neighbourhood where it's desperately needed.

Sounds like a great first step toward helping New Orleans return to its former glory -- one home and one family at a time.

Thom Mayne of Morphosis in Los Angeles designed a house that would float if the city floods. James Timberlake of KieranTimberlake Associates in Philadelphia created a house with native vines climbing up the side walls to provide shade and coolness. Steven B. Bingler of Concordia in New Orleans envisioned a house with wide front steps ideal for a traditional crawfish boil.

Those are three of the designs by 13 architecture firms commissioned by the actor Brad Pitt to help rebuild New Orleans’s impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The project, called Make It Right, calls for building 150 affordable, environmentally sound houses over the next two years. In a telephone interview from New Orleans, where he plans to present the designs today, Mr. Pitt said the residents of the neighborhood had been homeless long enough. “They’re coming up on their third Christmas,” he said.

Mr. Pitt said he had been attached to New Orleans for more than a decade. “I’ve always had a fondness for this place — it’s like no other,” he said. “Seeing the frustration firsthand made me want to return the kindness this city has shown me.”

Rather than bemoan the slow pace of redevelopment in the Ninth Ward, Mr. Pitt said he decided to address the problem directly by teaming with William McDonough, the green design expert; Graft, a Los Angeles architecture firm; and Cherokee, an investment firm based in Raleigh, N.C., that specializes in sustainable redevelopment. John Williams of New Orleans is the executive architect for the project.

“If you have this blank slate and this great technology out there, what better test than low-income housing?” Mr. Pitt said. “It’s got to work at all levels to really be viable.”

[...]

Pitt is asking foundations, corporations and individuals to contribute
to the project by adopting one house, several houses or a portion of a
house through the project Web site, makeitrightnola.org. “You can adopt
a tankless water heater or a solar panel or a tree or a low-flush
toilet,” Mr. Pitt said. “You can give it to someone for Christmas,” he
said — instead of another sweater.