Hurricane Katrina
Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
Location: Biloxi, Mississippi
Projects: Various
Design team: Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
Project partners: Biloxi Relief Recovery and Revitalization Center
Architecture
for Humanity is pleased to support the work of the Gulf Coast Community
Design Studio. The Gulf Coast Community Design Studio is an outreach of
Mississippi State University School of Architecture
and uses professional faculty and staff to provide design assistance to
the communities along the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by
Hurricane Katrina. In January, Architecture for Humanity provided the
studio with a grant to hire two design professionals to work on site in
East Biloxi.
Since
then teh community design studio has worked with the Biloxi Relief
Recovery and Revitalization Center to help families in East Biloxi
re-envision and rebuild their community. Early on their work has
focused on mapping the neighborhood, work that laid the groundwork for
programs like the Model Home Program. Today, they are working on providing design services to families repairing and reconstructing homes.
Above:
Members of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio and the Biloxi Relief
Recovery and Revitalization Center in February 2006. From left to
right: Kate Stohr (AFH), Uyen Le (NAVASA), David Perkes (GCCDS),
Councilman Bill Stallworth (BRRRC), Sherry-Lea Bloodworth (AFH),
Benjamin Warnke (Warnke Community Consulting), Phil Eide (ECD), D.
Jason Pressgrove (GCCDS), Cameron Sinclair (AFH)
Mapping
Starting
in January the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio helped prepare a
series of maps for the community of east Biloxi. These maps helped to
translate the new elevation standards being proposed by FEMA and helped
officials and community partners estimate the level of damage in the
area. The maps were created from lot by lot property surveys conducted
by the design studio with help from Architecture for Humanity
volunteers overs spring break in March 2005.
The
maps were then posted at the Biloxi Relief Recovery and Revitalization
center along with other diagrams prepared by the center to help
families determine whether or not it was feasible for them to rebuild
on their lot.
Project: Reddix House
Owner: Cora Reddix
Designer: D. Jason Pressgrove, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
Project partners: East Biloxi Relief, Recovery and Revitalization Center
Above: Cora Reddix outside her FEMA trailer
(Photo credit: D. Jason Pressgrove/Gulf Coast Community Design studio)
Cora
Reddix, 86, has lived in Biloxi for over 50 years. A mother of two
grown children, Jean and Juanita, she now lives in a small FEMA Trailer
parked in the North corner of her property on Elmer Street. And though
she has several of them, Cora says that she forgets to bring her
Òwalking stickÓ every time she leaves the house. But most of the time,
she waits, like so many others in East Biloxi, for a roof over her head.
Her
former home was decrepit before the Hurricane in 2005. After the
hurricane, crooked but still standing, the home was deemed totally
unsound, held up solely by the vertical siding. It was demolished in
the middle of March 2006, with the promise that a new one would be
built by a contractor, volunteers, and $20,000 of Ms. ReddixÕs money.
But
at the end of April 2006, Ms. Reddix found that her $20,000 had been
mishandled by the contractor and that there was nothing left-no money,
no home, a tragedy upon tragedy on the empty lot at 207 Elmer Street,
home of Ms. Cora Reddix.
Above: Plans of the proposed home by D. Jason Pressgrove/Gulf Coast Community Design studio
Design Challenges:
Bounded
on the South by the railroad and to the West by a historical home, 207
Elmer Street is 70ft wide by 48ft deep. The ÒranchÓ proportion-wide
along the street, shallow in depth-is rotated in comparison to the
other properties along the narrow Elmer Street and to East Biloxi where
the typical lot size is approximately 50ft wide by 100ft deep. The
required setbacks (20ft. front, 25ft. rear, 5ft sides) for the site do
not match the character of the street. A variance provides a more
confident setback of 10ft. The
frequency of trains gives the site a dynamic, urban quality, but
frequently and abruptly pauses conversation. The private spaces,
therefore, act as a buffer to the social spaces. The home mustmeet the
International Building Code and the Standard for Hurricane Resistant
Residential Construction, be easy to build with volunteer labor and, by
conscience, be accessible.
Project: Harris House
Owner: Patience Harris
Designer: D. Jason Pressgrove, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
Project partners: East Biloxi Relief and Coordination Center, Urban Life Ministries (tentative)
Patience,
67, is a lifelong resident of Biloxi, Mississippi. She, a mother of 3
grown children (Arnold, Donna, and Robert), has been at 192 Bellman
Street since 1967. Her modest home there was heavily damaged in the
surge of Katrina. Like the Reddix, the small amount of money she had
for repairs, she gave to a contractor who promised her a new home, but
her money was mismanaged.
The
many volunteers have been great to her and have done all that they can
to repair her damaged home. They have gutted, set a few new windows,
put in a new sub-floor, and through their work, demonstrated a degree
of optimism about the property's future. But her home barely withstood
the knocking and the beating of these minor repairs and must ultimately
be demolished.
Interior of the existing home which will need to be demolished
(D. Jason Pressgrove/Gulf Coast Community Design studio)
Above: Plans of the proposed home by D. Jason Pressgrove/Gulf Coast Community Design studio
Design challenges:
The
challenges in designing this house were to: provide an outdoor
extension of the living and kitchen spaces for entertaining, provide
daylighting for every room, meet the International Building Code and
the Standard for Hurricane Resistant Residential Construction and to
make the home easy to build with volunteer labor and accessible.-P
