UB10 rolls toward completion

March 25, 2015

Although much of the spring has been dedicated to my thesis project, I’ve also been participating in the URBANbuild 10 construction process. URBANbuild is a great program, one of the real strengths of the Tulane School of Architecture. I feel very fortunate to have participated in the design last semester and to now be working with the great team building this house. The progress since the start of the semester has been excellent. Despite some significant rain, as well as design changes, Mardi Gras, and all the other issues that crop up on a New Orleans construction site, we have a house with a finished …

Latest project: Dew Drop Inn

November 5, 2014

Early this semester, I was recruited by the Tulane City Center to lead the construction of a temporary facade installation at the Dew Drop Inn, a landmark in Central City, New Orleans. In its prime the Dew Drop Inn contained a hotel, a barbershop, and a prominent nightclub where icons like Ray Charles once played. Its owners are raising money for its renovation, but for now this historic building is dilapidated and vacant. To beautify the facade and generate awareness and interest during the fundraising period, the Tulane City Center designed a large temporary art installation for the facade of the Dew Drop. …

Step 1: Installing side “bumpers”

December 11, 2012

In order to attach my “mystery build” to the trailer, I have two main problems to solve. Most utility trailers are built to a maximum total width of 8′-6″. That’s the widest allowed dimension for road travel. And that’s measured to the outside of the wheel wells. Unless the trailer bed sits on top of the wheels (which mine does not), the actual trailer bed is smaller — typically 7′ or slightly less. To get the widest possible structure on the trailer, therefore, it needs to extend past the trailer frame on either side. But I didn’t want to …

Mystery Build

November 30, 2012

Today I got the first piece of a new project. I’m calling it the “Mystery Build”, because what I will be building is a mystery to others (and also to me). However, the first piece is not a mystery. It’s a 7′ x 18′ flatbed utility trailer, with a double axle and a total weight rating of 12,000 lbs. More to come.

Terre-de-Bas tourist center inaugurated

July 25, 2012

This news dates back to March 16, but I just recently found the picture that truly drives it home. This time last summer I was in Guadeloupe working with a group of students from VISIONS Service Adventures on a project to convert an open-air pavilion into a tourist welcome center for the small island of Terre-de-Bas. We left the project substantially built but unfinished — lacking paint and many finishing touches. Well, the local community stepped up to finish the job in style. The new tourist welcome center was inaugurated in March, in a ceremony that included the mayor of …

Labor Day pictures

October 2, 2009

Seth sent me some cool pictures from last Labor Day weekend’s work in New Orleans. As I described before, Seth and Emilie’s house is… A historic “camelback” shotgun house on Louisiana Avenue, it’s surprisingly spacious and will be divided into two units; the primary apartment in the front and a rental unit in the two-story portion in the rear. A complete renovation is a huge undertaking for two people, but it will be an amazing house once it is finished. Seth and I spent the afternoon pulling up floorboards and adding new floor joists in the upstairs bedroom to create …

Labor Day weekend

September 8, 2009

As it should be, Labor Day weekend was full of sun and adventure (and even a little bit of labor). As part of our ongoing effort to meet new ultimate players around the coast, Doug, Jesse, Jon, the other Doug and I went to New Orleans on Sunday to play some pick-up ultimate frisbee. Meeting up with a local group, we played for several good hours on the lawn in front of Audubon Zoo. One of my goals is to spend more time in New Orleans, and a frisbee game every few weeks is a great reason to go over. …

Rural Studio

July 27, 2009

Several months back, in early May, I visited the Rural Studio for their end-of-term closing ceremonies and pig roast. A program of Auburn University’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction, the Rural Studio is embedded in rural Hale County, Alabama. Throughout Hale County, the Rural Studio puts architecture students to work designing and building creative, low-cost, high-quality solutions to the needs of rural communities. Auburn/Rural Studio alumni Jessie and Britton led us on an amazing three-day tour of this special place.

A Low Impact Woodland Home

July 26, 2009

Head over and check out A Low Impact Woodland Home — a beautifully crafted, organic, environmentally friendly house in Wales. Its approach to green building is about as far from LEED as you can get. Imagine how it would be to live in a house you had designed and built yourself, in four months, for only $5,000? In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to …

Snakebit

July 14, 2009

Via BUILDblog: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNd2_X2-ko] Website: www.snakebitfilm.com

design, build, learn. repeat.