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New Orleans MIR Homes – Brad Pitt Charity for Homeless People

Louisiana Make it Right Housing Development – Homes after Hurricane Katrina, USA

post updated Mar 29, 2021

New Orleans Houses, Lower Ninth Ward
Date: 2008
Design: Graftlab with Brad Pitt

New Orleans Homes information from Graftlab Mar 2008:

New Orleans Make It Right – Architects involved with charity

GRAFT
This firm was established in 1998 in Los Angeles, California by Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz. The firm was joined by Thomas Willemeit in 2001 and opened an office in Berlin, Germany the same year. In 2005 Gregor Hoheisel, who had been partner in Los Angeles in 2000 to 2001, became Partner in GRAFT Beijing, which was founded the same year. In 2007 Alejandra Lillo became partner for Graft LA.

GRAFT is a full service architectural firm with the collective professional experience that encompasses a wide array of building types including Fine Arts, Educational, Institutional, Commercial and Residential facilities. The firm has won the Honor Award 2005 from the AIA in Los Angeles, the Contract World Award 2005 and 2004, the Hospitality Design Award 2005, along with numerous other international awards and prizes.

GRAFT was conceived as a Label for Architecture, Urban Planning, Exhibition Design, Music and the “Pursuit of Happiness”. Since the firm was established it has been commissioned to design and manage a wide range of projects in multiple disciplines and locations.

With the core of the firm’s enterprises gravitating around the field of architecture and the built environment, GRAFT has always maintained an interest in crossing the boundaries between disciplines and “grafting” the creative potentials and methodologies of different realities. This is reflected in the firm’s expansion into the fields of music, car design, art installations, academic projects and “eventings” executed by their in house production department as well as in the variety of project locations throughout the globe.

“Architecture is a deliberate recreation of a new and special reality that grows from our response to life. It cannot be copied; it must be created.”

WILLIAM MCDONOUGH + PARTNERS / MCDONOUGH BRAUNGART DESIGN CHEMISTRY

Executing a diverse array of projects around the world from studios in Charlottesville, Virginia, and San Francisco, California, William McDonough + Partners (WM+P) is a 46-person firm of architects, planners, and leaders in sustainable design. We practice a positive, principled design approach that draws inspiration from living systems and processes, and all of our designs integrate environmentally intelligent design strategies.

Since its founding in 1981, WM+P has been engaged in expanding the industry’s concept of quality. Traditional measures of cost, performance, and aesthetics are incomplete; ecological intelligence and social equity are also critical measures of quality.

The WM+P team works toward the goal of a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed. The firm’s philosophy is rooted in Cradle to CradleSM thinking, as developed by William McDonough with Michael Braungart in Cradle to CradleSM: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, 2002).

McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) is a product and process design consultancy applying the Cradle to CradleSM framework to redesign the way we make things. MBDC offers business consulting and education services, including product certification on sustainable product design.

Cradle to CradleSM thinking suggests that everything we create can contribute positively to society, the economy, and the environment. This is the next-generation goal we are working toward using today’s products and technologies. The William Mcdonough + Partners team, in conjunction with MBDC, is using Cradle to CradleSM thinking to guide the design and materials selection for the Make It Right homes in the Lower 9th Ward. (Cradle to CradleSM is a Service Mark of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry)

Louisiana Buildings

TEAM BUILDING

What began as a collaboration between Brad Pitt’s selected design team for the Make It Right project (Graft and William McDonough + Partners), has expanded to include MIR Executive Architecture firm John Williams Architects, LLC. From this point, thirteen renowned architecture firms were assembled by the MIR design team, whose commission it is to refashion the final Make It Right community.

When assembling the MIR architectural panel, Graft and William McDonough + Partners solicited the guidance of MIR Founder Brad Pitt, Reed Kroloff, and the Lower 9th Ward Community Coalition along with specific residents. The process began with over 50 architects who were selected based upon their exceptional reputations and a carefully considered list of criteria which are as follows:

– Prior interest or involvement in New Orleans, preferably post Katrina and/or Experience with disaster relief
– Familiarity and interest in sustainability
– Experience with residential and multi-family housing
– Proven to be skilled innovators on low budget projects
– Experience dealing with structures that have to successfully address water based or low lying environment(s)
– And, of course, deep respect for design quality

The final resolution of architecture firms were chosen with the intent in representing different perspectives and consequently were assembled in to three groupings: 1. Locals (from the New Orleans area) 2. National (from all over the United States of America) and 3. International (from all over the world). This wide range of design opinions and qualities was promoted with the desire to achieve a community of vitality and diversity.

The obligation for this community to complement the spirit and people of the Lower Ninth Ward is clear. The MIR team is focused in the long-term to help this community’s strength to become a catalyst for further growth not only locally but also globally, to serve as a model for rebuilding devastated communities around the world.

New Orleans Housing design : GRAFT for MIR Charity for Homeless People

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA