BSc Architecture UG7
Fig. 7.1 Hannah Lewis Y3, ‘20 Leagues Under the Sea’. This proposed underwater settlement posits a world where sea levels have risen above the protection levees of New Orleans, forcing American suburbia to retreat into the ocean, creating a new form of wet living. Fig. 7.2 Oliver Ansell Y2, ‘The Prolonging of Pilottown’. With a population of zero, Pilottown, located at the mouth of the Mississippi River, has become a ghost town lost to the floods. This proposed retreat, for six elderly and original residents of the town, aims to prolong – through a communal form of architecture – the lifespan of Pilottown before it is altogether consumed by rising waters. Figs. 7.3 – 7.4 Cherie Wong Y2, ‘St. Louis Voodoo Temple’. This new home for the voodoo practitioners of New Orleans sits within the famed St. Louis Cemetery, where Marie Laveau,
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2017
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the first voodoo queen of Louisiana, is buried. Controlled by sunlight and moonlight, the building is activated incrementally at particular times across the day to allow its inhabitants to follow the very specific voodoo calendar of rituals. Fig. 7.5 Alexandra Campbell Y3, ‘The Ninth Ward Floodwall’. Based on the festival Anba Dlo (‘beneath the waters'), the building is both scientific and spiritual in nature, with the pragmatism of science setting with the sun, and the ethereality of spirit taking over with the appearance of the moon. Situated along, and being intrinsically linked to, a new floodwall along the Lower Ninth Ward, this institute for flood research and spiritual enlightenment inhabits the boundary between sanctuary and threat. The architecture aims to create a new sacrificial symbol of safety for New Orleans.