Design Approach

Since Hurricane Katrina hit the coast, Insurance companies are requiring elevation to fund rebuilding, and the government has set up a Base Flood Elevation for each neighborhood. Elevating houses is a defensive move made out of fear and compliance. Elevating houses disconnects people from the street and the neighboring houses and leaves an abandoned ground level.

The goal of my project is to create a place for culture and the experiences the culture can provide. The design approach is a process that takes examples of successful elevated homes and transition spaces and applying them to homes on the Gulf Coast. This process is made of five steps which are overall linear, but as new lessons and realizations are made, the process is transparent and the possibilities are endless. The last step is testing the reality of the possibilities.