Portland Courtyard

The courtyard is an edible garden, play space and area of congregation for all residents.  All condominium apartments open onto the yard and a Community Kitchen at the northeast corner of the lot will benefit from the substantial yield of fruits and vegetables grown on-site. The compact footprint of the residential buildings at the garden level helps to maximize the coverage and output of the urban farm. Profit generated by the kitchen and garden will off-set maintenance and utility costs making this complex an affordable place to live.  The apartments, ranging from one bedroom to six bedrooms, can accommodate a variety of household types - from individuals to large families.


The Community Kitchen will provide an alternative to restaurant dining or to shopping and preparing a home-cooked meal from scratch.  While this concept has been proven to save

time and make home-cooked meals significantly easier to prepare, there are also numerous additional benefits to the community.  For example, this common kitchen will reconnect

the consumer with local farms and fisheries through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).  In addition, and in keeping with the CSA model, the approximately $64,000 per year in profit

generated by the Community Kitchen would allow it to partner with local food producers in order to negotiate fair pricing that benefits both the producer and consumer.  Through

these partnerships our community will once again celebrate the area’s local bounty, while reducing the food’s embodied energy and promoting sustainable and organic farming.  In fact,

the approximately 9100 SF of planted roofs, terraces, and ground plane in our design will allow for a substantial yield of fruits and vegetables right on site, with the added benefit of

reconnecting urban consumers to their food systems.

Vital Home

Eco-friendly and economical, these homes are adaptable to virtually any location and are designed to harness the sun energy through passive heating and cooling techniques. This four bedroom model includes a double height interior that combines the kitchen, dining and living rooms into one shared light filled space

Rungu Church

Commissioned by the Dakonia Compassionate Ministry, a mission of the Lutheran Church in Kenya, the Rungu Lutheran Church has been designed to take advantage of the equatorial sun.  Natural daylight is to filter into the sanctuary through a faceted corrugated roof and through vertical slots in the concrete masonry walls.

New Orleans Community

With New Orleans a shadow of its former self, we propose the development of a new kind of community that celebrates the city; a community that embraces the hot and humid climate, the omnipresent levees and New Orleans rich culinary and cultural traditions.  We seek to engage the city and with some careful planning, begin to rethink and reinvent those parts of the city that are ailing and in need of rejuvenation.


As a means of reengaging this site with the broader community, we propose that the Community Center building function as a Community Kitchen.  Located at ground level on the northwest corner of the site, the Community Kitchen will provide an alternative to restaurant dining or to shopping and preparing a home-cooked meal from scratch.  The Community Kitchen clientele will purchase pre-arranged meals that have preparation instructions and ingredients prepped for cooking.  The client would then have the choice of cooking and/or dining at home or in the Community Kitchen. 


While this concept has been proven to save time and make home-cooked meals significantly easier to prepare, there are also numerous additional benefits to the community.  For example, this common kitchen will reconnect the consumer with local farms and fisheries through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).  In addition, in keeping with the CSA model the approximately $110,000 per year (see Diagram A) in profit generated by the Community Kitchen would allow it to partner with local food producers in order to negotiate fair pricing that benefits both the producer and consumer.  Through these partnerships our community will once again celebrate the area local bounty, while reducing the food embodied energy and promoting sustainable and organic farming.  In fact, the approximately 50,000 SF of planted roofs, terraces, and sloping ground planes in our design will allow for a substantial yield of fruits and vegetables right on site, with the added benefit of reconnecting urban consumers to their food systems.


With profits of approximately $110,000 per year and potential labor costs of $55,000 per year (see Diagram A), we envision the Community Kitchen as an economic engine that could finance the additional construction costs associated with green design features and provide part-time job opportunities for the local community.


New Orleans, perpetually vulnerable to flooding, is equipped to pump rainwater into Lake Pontchartrain through a series of canals that are lined by levees, dikes and floodwalls.  Our design mitigates the load on this infrastructure with storm-water retention provided by the planted roofs, terraces and sloping ground planes throughout the complex.  In fact, virtually every horizontal surface is planted, passively cooling the buildings and surroundings through evaporation in the hot months. In cooler months, the multi-layered roof assembly will provide ample insulation, indeed, more than would be available through conventional construction.


Our typical building form was influenced by the design of local vernacular (the ubiquitous) shotgun houses that have simple, long, thin, rectangular plans well suited to drawing on prevailing winds to passively cool the buildings during Louisiana hot and humid months.  These structures were the inspiration behind our bar shaped buildings, oriented so that the short elevations face the prevailing winds to the south.  The complex of buildings shows an alternating pattern of building and breezeway in the east/west direction.  Individual units in the apartment building do not sit adjacent to each other but are instead terraced and set apart to allow for airflow in, through and around the units.  In addition, with the exception of the Community Center, all the buildings are raised off the ground to allow for airflow underneath.


Wind turbines on the site will help power a geo-thermal heating and cooling system necessary to condition the buildings in extreme conditions.  Supplemental electricity production will be provided via photovoltaic glazing on the south elevation of all buildings.