Hurricane RELIEF SHelter 

Finished Product

​Preliminary Ideas
For our first major project, we were assigned the task of designing a temporary relief shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina. I began my design process envisioning a modular home, with rooms that could be picked up via cranes and put together like puzzle pieces, all under a single roof. Although my design was too complicated, I simplified the process and ended up making a better house.

At the end of the project, my house stayed with my initial vision, but changed in the way it works. My house would now feature iron casters on the bottom of each of the rooms, and pocket doors on each side, to allow the owners of the home to move their house around to fit their needs. This movabillity would allow life to grow in the shelter, something that lacked in the original FEMA trailers. This design met all of the project requirements and created an environment that any family could grow and recover from the storm.

9th Ward Client Homes

                                 Finished Product

 

Preliminary Ideas
At the beginning of my design process, I envisioned a compact, yet open house that could service the community in many ways. New Orleans, in many ways, is a "porch community" meaning they value family more highly than many other cities in America. With that in mind, I designed the house to have many public spaces, leaving it up to the owner of the house how they wanted to house their friends and family.