The New Orleans Public Space Project proposes to examine the transformations needed in the city’s public space in order to address its long-term sustainability through the street network’s capacity to address water management, mobility changes, connectivity across neighborhoods, urban ecology, heritage revitalization, and relation with its main geographical features
New orleans public space project
Previous Projects and Proposals
This research project examined a sequence of historical infrastructure decisions and water-management strategies. Urban development projects have shaped contemporary New Orleans’ vulnerabilities, opportunities, and evolving relationship with water and community space. These precedents reveal a city shaped by cycles of innovation, disruption, vulnerability, and adaptation. In the first part of the studio my partner Jay Martin and I mapped out some of the infrastructure projects in New Orleans’ past.
Fall 2025 - Studio 5051 - Instructed by Sean Fowler and Iñaki Alday
I-610 Bayou
Caroline Cameron and Charles Kwak
Interstate 10 and 610 are major disruptions in the urban layout of New Orleans, breaking neighborhoods, waterways, and creating negative impacts on surrounding areas. This projects aims to mediate these issues by revitalizing the area under and around the intersection of I-610 and London Ave. Canal. By adding public programming such as a community pool, farmers market, cafe, and recreation courts, neighbors are able to use this new park area properly. In addition to public programming this site also aims to offer topographic justice, by storing rainwater that enters the site and surrounding area, to allow the storm water system relief. This rain garden area supports the idea of “living with water” from the Dutch Dialogues that make water an amenity instead of something to hide behind walls. By exposing the canal, creating connection across, and adding amenities, this area can become a true park where neighbors gather, not just a piece of city infrastructure. The site becomes a public market, park, and rain garden that supports the neighborhood socially and environmentally.
