Chase Competition Results

We got 2nd place!

Six of our team mem­bers gave a thor­ough and con­vinc­ing pre­sen­ta­tion to the panel of judges in New Orleans last week for the Chase Urban Design com­pe­ti­tion. The New School entered the design com­pe­ti­tion with a project devel­oped jointly between Milano, the urban pol­icy and man­age­ment school, and Par­sons, the design school. Our design for a 140-unit mixed-income res­i­den­tial com­plex in con­junc­tion with Vol­un­teers of Amer­ica is excit­ing in three aspects. All these aspects are related to the adja­cency to the river­front vision, which will be adding parks and devel­op­ments to the New Orleans river­front in the com­ing years.

First, the struc­ture is mid-rise, set­ting a prece­dent for future devel­op­ment by respect­ing the exist­ing scale of adja­cent neigh­bor­hoods while increas­ing den­sity. Sec­ond, the high pro­por­tion of low-income units makes this soon to be highly desir­able areas acces­si­ble to those most need­ing hous­ing in New Orleans. Third, the plan for retail space and ser­vices makes use of the access point to the parks through a break in the flood­wall, turn­ing a neglected cob­ble­stone street into a site of vibrant com­mu­nity activ­ity.
You can down­load our report from the Enter­prise Com­mu­nity Part­ners web­site.

Why did we get 2nd place? The com­pe­ti­tion stip­u­lated that pref­er­ence would be given to projects in the 17 post-Katrina recov­ery zones. We knew this when we chose our site, which is not in one of the recov­ery zones. Given our options of sites with Vol­un­teers of Amer­ica, we chose 1770 Tchoupi­toulas for its chal­lenges both in terms of financ­ing and design. The value of what was learned in devel­op­ing the project far out­weighed the value of fol­low­ing the rules to win first place.

Work­ing on this project, I had the oppor­tu­nity to con­sider dif­fer­ent ways that groups work together (or don’t work together) as they col­lab­o­rate toward a final goal. The graphic design­ers, the archi­tects, and the finance experts all offered vital com­po­nents to the project through dif­fer­ent work­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion styles. I was asked to help coor­di­nate the groups, going to dif­fer­ent meet­ings, brief­ing every­one on what was hap­pen­ing, bridg­ing gaps, and get infor­ma­tion to where it needed to be. I am good at this, which is the same rea­son why I am encour­age to be involved in stu­dent government(s). It has been good to remem­ber this strength since I have few opper­tu­ni­ties to use it in my time at school before this semes­ter. Even bet­ter to come out of the expe­ri­ence as part of a win­ning team with an inno­v­a­tive project to con­tribute to the future of New Orleans. I also learned about the intri­ca­cies of work­ing with a client. In this case,Volunteers of America’s com­mu­nity out­reach plan did not match the time line of the com­pe­ti­tion. What began as a frus­trat­ing lim­i­ta­tion opened up new under­stand­ings. The out­reach work that the Milano team did given cer­tain con­straints went far beyond the expec­ta­tions of Vol­un­teers of Amer­ica and has made their work eas­ier as they move ahead to develop the site. The require­ments of the client taught us about the nature of com­mu­nity work in New Orleans and the deter­mi­na­tion of the team to develop a win­ning project opened up unex­pected doors for the client. What was ini­tially expe­ri­enced as con­flict resulted in synergy.