Skyway in New Orleans

Description: This was an undergraduate student project by Ryan Keener for Stephen Turk's ARCH 341 course, Autumn 2005. After the affects of hurricane Katrina it was important to reconsider New Orleans and its relationship with the water by designing a multi-family housing unit whose structure could function in all conditions, but whose program could be reconfigured when needed. The studios bottom up strategy allows residents affected by hurricane Katrina to return to New Orleans and begin to occupy the sky in custom housing units they design. In a metabolist fashion the units could then easily plugged anywhere into a superstructure. By doing so this generates new and interesting personal landscapes along with a public park system. Conceptually the skyway structure could be built and maintained by the city of New Orleans. A street trolley, much like the one on St. Charles Ave. would run up and down the main level of skyway connecting several city blocks. Each block would then have its own attraction. And in order to keep skyway a mixed class neighborhood, each block would need in any combination two of each unit sizes.-- Ryan Keener