Before Hurricane Katrina raged through New Orleans in 2005, devastating many of its neighborhoods, local firm Billes Architecture hadn't done any residential work beyond designing the house of its principal and co-owner, Gerald Billes, AIA, NCARB. But with entire neighborhoods of homes practically erased, the firm saw not only a need that it could help fill, but an opportunity as well.

Rebuilding efforts in New Orleans are progressing, but many neighborhoods in the area most affected by the storm surge and flooding are still desolate. Actor and activist Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation has continued to focus attention on the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, but many other areas of the city are similarly damaged.

Along with 12 other architecture firms, Billes Architecture designed a house for the Make It Right project in 2007. Three families so far have selected Billes' design for their new homes, and they are among the first eight Make It Right homes to be completed (click here). Billes also has submitted a new design to the Make It Right project in response to an April 2009 call for duplex designs.

But co-owners/principals Billes and Richard S. Kravet, AIA, NCARB, wanted to draw attention to neighborhoods outside the Lower 9th Ward and to encourage the rebuilding of those communities in a sensible, sustainable, and modern way. So in January 2009, the firm held a Home Design Competition for architecture students.

seeking student designs

"One of the reasons we held this contest was to try to spawn more interest in those areas that have been having difficult times coming back," Billes says. "The Lower 9th Ward was specifically excluded from our contest because it's received so much attention from other organizations. We concentrated on all other areas that were hardest hit by the Katrina floods."

Billes invited graduate and undergraduate students from some of the leading design schools in North America to enter the competition. Sixteen U.S. and five Canadian institutions were given an opportunity to participate (view the complete list of universities here).

For the competition, students were asked to design a 1,500-square-foot to 2,000-square-foot house with three bedrooms and two and a half baths. The homes had to be designed to withstand the region's challenging climate and strong winds and be suitable for one of four city neighborhoods: Uptown, Downtown, Gentilly/Lakeview, and New Orleans East. They also had to carry an anticipated cost of $150,000 to $225,000. The 27 entries drew on provided information about each area's history, culture, and demographics, as well as lot parameters.

The competition further required students to conceive designs that would be eligible for LEED for Homes Gold or Platinum certification and to provide a full explanation of the LEED elements they incorporated. Entrants also had to provide functional diagrams or descriptions of the energy conservation and alternative energy concepts they employed. The competition encouraged students to create modern, contemporary designs based on an understanding of the successful features of the time-tested New Orleans vernacular.

Keep reading on the next page, and view a slideshow of the competition winners.

The firm says it wanted to see house designs that were both cost-effective and buildable. "There were some serious budgetary and size constraints," says Dylan O'Donnell, marketing director for Billes and co-manager of the competition. "When you have to be parsimonious and green at the same time, it's very challenging, but those challenges allowed some great innovation and some great designs."

From a group of 10 finalists, a panel of judges selected five winning designs:

  • Forever Green, by David Dworkind and Andrew Hruby, McGill University, Montreal;

  • The Excursion, by Michael Benkert, University of Cincinnati;

  • Breezeway, by Jessica Dan and Hamza Alhbian, McGill University;

  • The Lakeview House, by Thomas Colosino and David Lachin, Louisiana State University; and

  • New Datum for a Topography Under Water, by Justin Boulanger and Ann Rodgers, McGill University.

    (View our slideshow of the top five winners at the bottom of the page.)

    According to Billes, the winning designs weren't necessarily the ones that scored highest in any one judging category, but rather those that received consistently high rankings from the judges across categories. The designs were each evaluated based on a review of their graphic design submissions, completeness of the entry, energy conservation, aesthetics, affordability, feasibility, and constructability.

    The competition judges included Martin C. Pedersen, executive editor of Metropolis magazine; Matt Petersen, president and CEO of Global Green USA; Miyoko Ohtake, associate editor of Dwell magazine; Brian Fichtner, design editor of CoolHunting.com; Lawrence C. Gibbs, CEO of Gibbs Construction, New Orleans; and several Billes Architecture staff members.

    Finalist teams were flown to New Orleans for the announcement of the top five winning designs. In addition to the chance to have their designs built, the five winners were awarded $1,000 cash prizes.

    Continued on next page.

    rebuilding a more modern new orleans

    The announcement of the competition's winners in April coincided with the launch of New Designs New Orleans, a nonprofit that will focus on rebuilding communities locally and around the Gulf Coast. The development organization was co-founded by Gerry Billes and Jeanne Souders, an associate at the firm and co-manager of the design competition. Souders also is principal at Billes' product design division, Billes Products. Through New Designs New Orleans, Billes Architecture plans to actually build some of the winning house designs through partnerships with other organizations. However, the firm has not yet decided which of the designs it will build first; it may depend on the organization with which New Designs New Orleans partners.

    Billes would like to see the city's architecture move in a modern direction, with a greater focus on affordability and sustainability—particularly in areas hit hardest by the hurricane. Although modern sensibilities aren't often associated with cities as architecturally unique as New Orleans, the success of the high-profile Make It Right project—which draws on designs that are mostly modern takes on vernacular architecture—has shown how attractive, livable, and complementary to existing aesthetics modern design can be.

    In Billes' experience, most developers involved in post-Katrina rebuilding have little interest in modern design and mostly want to match the style of new housing to the style of the neighborhood, but he reminds them, "There is no neighborhood, now.

    "I'm not against preservation; I was and still am a preservationist," Billes continues. "But in these areas that have been devastated you almost have a clean slate, in a way, to use that ground for new thinking, for sustainable design, for modern design, and I think that's a great opportunity. And we haven't taken advantage of it as much as we should."

    The architectural makeup of New Orleans' residential sections will most certainly change, simply because of the new building and flood-level requirements, but Billes thinks the stage is set for modern design to win converts among local residents.

    "People are used to living in certain types of houses, and I think that's why an awful lot of the Greek Revival or Victorian styles have been so popular," Billes says. "That doesn't mean they wouldn't like a modern building—that's just what they're used to. The more these modern designs come online, the more acceptable they're going to be to a general population."

    For more on reconstruction efforts in New Orleans, see residential architect's August 2007 issue.