Let's Go To "Architecture School"

We don't do much with documentaries around here, but tonight the Sundance Channel debuts "Architecture School," which looks at a Tulane University class assigned to design houses for a portion of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina. You can read the New York Times review here; Barnhart also weighed in here. I thought I'd bring you a chunk of the press tour interview with the people who made the show...

Question: Was there any impact at all in the decision-making about the design of this house based on the fact that the two houses that the program had already built in this neighborhood were so comparatively modern and, you know, I credit the episodes I saw because they did have people from the neighborhood saying that that is a problem for them. But did that factor at all into the aesthetic decisions made about this project's design?

Tulane Prof. Byron Mouton: In studio with the students, we constantly talk about a need to introduce progressive strategies to a city that's already authentically old, and so we try to steer away from replication of what's there because there's already so much old fabric that just needs to be repaired first. So I do tend to steer them away from producing familiar schemes. We always want to look forward. In reference to the first two strategies, they were steppingstones to the third house. We were very diplomatic with the first house. We tried to develop a form that was somewhat familiar. A little bit of greater number referenced better some of the common types and styles of the region. The second house did that less. The third house was a step further.

Former Tulane Prof. Reed Kroloff: I think actually if you — as you watch the episodes of the show when they come out, and if you had an opportunity at some point to speak to the people in the neighborhood, particularly the first house and now the third, it's remarkable how the neighborhood ultimately comes to embrace something that at first seems somewhat alien to them. New Orleans is a city built on tradition, and when you start to introduce changes to that or new elements, it can be difficult for people who spent their whole life there to accept it on an initial viewing. But later on they become fiercely
protective.

Question: Certain classes, when you go to school, college or something, everything has to be just right. During the shot, everything has to be just right. Now you're teaching them. Suppose you hate, actually hate what somebody has done, and yet in their mind it's great to them, what do you do about it then?

Mouton: We rely on consensus. It's all a discussion. What's really interesting, I think, about the program is when (the producers) approached us, I hadn't really thought about the fact that not many people really understand how we think or what we do. And everything we do in that curriculum is a negotiation. It's always a search. I don't — I think this comes out in the program. I don't have a set of methods that I teach the students that they have to abide by. I offer direction. We build skills. But often they'll respond with ideas that I don't always anticipate, and that's what's really interesting. We don't in the end — we don't in the end produce a house that we design. We, in fact, produce a house that we discovered, right, through the process of design. And I love that. You know?

Kroloff: There's also — all architectural education at Tulane, and other universities as well, relies on a vigorous and rigorous regime of critiquing. And that critique has to be very important, in going directly to your question, not to be directed at an individual. It's not that I don't like your scheme. It's this is a set of issues that are being brought to the table by the scheme you've produced. How do we address those issues and their broader implications?

Question: How does the affordable housing component work with this project, and did it make it much different from previous years' projects working with – you know, low cost materials, and do you always respond to what a client might want in the way this time? I think sometimes architecture students just design fantastical houses with certain materials.

Mouton: There are two ways to respond to that. First, we don't really work with a client. These are
developed prototypes. If we had a client involved up front, there would be much greater limitation placed
on the outcome. So we develop a housing prototype as an example of what might happen. Regarding affordability, we're struggling with that, the definition. It still turns out that, um, the houses which are most affordable to build are not necessarily the houses that are most affordable to operate, meaning sustainability and cooling and heating. The technologies that are available to us that make houses much more affordable to operate and run are still a bit pricey, so it's a constant back and forth. And we made the decision with this house — the first house was an old-fashioned, stick-built house. The second house was
pre-fabricated metal panels, so we saved time with labor. And then, we — the third house is pre-engineered, insulated panels that allowed us to put the house up quickly and achieve a product that
was easy to heat and cool — affordable to heat and cool. So each step of the way, we're getting better
at answering that question, but it's still one to be answered.

Kroloff: But I do think it's important. There really is a client and Neighborhood Housing Services, through Randy and Lauren who you meet in the show – their — part of the reason these houses are so good is that they are a fearless client. These people don't give these houses away. They sell them. And yet, they're accepting a product that is, at the very get-go, contemporary, much different than what is traditional in New Orleans or typical in New Orleans. And so this is really very much a client-driven production of these houses, and we do pay very careful attention to what their needs are.

Question: Could you tell us about the state of New Orleans architecturally? I mean, where would you put it? How much more needs to be done?

Mouton: A lot.

Kroloff: A great deal. It's still extremely damaged. It will take decades to put the city right. Even if — even if you had the full cooperation and the full support of the state, local, and federal governments, which you don't, um, it's an enormously complicated problem.

Producer Michael Selditch: One of the interesting things that comes out of this series, and one of the things I learned, which I didn't really realize before, is that it was in a pretty bad state before Katrina, and it
was really Katrina that shed a spotlight on this city and made people realize we need to do some things
here, but a lot of it was badly damaged and crumbling way before Katrina. For 30 years, there were many
houses that were empty and falling apart.

Mouton: And that has a lot to do with, um, the sites we're working with. Working with the Neighborhood Housing Services, their strategy is really to — they're attempting to rebuild neighborhoods one house at a time. And so the – we're not choosing sites in the middle of empty, devastated areas. We're actually choosing sites which exist amidst an already vital urban fabric that happens to be damaged, and the goal is to introduce both a progress and some resolution to these areas of the city. And it's going to take some time, but I truly believe that's the best way to go about fixing that place.