Probably many, many of us reading this gave money to Make it Right, the charity that was founded in 2007 by Brad Pitt to help rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward. Would you like to see what they’ve done?
It’s wonderful.
This is along and in the area of Tennessee Street:
Next to one of the homes was this memorial:
It’s about a military family. A woman, I’m guessing a grandmother, with a three year old, who both died. At the bottom it reads in part:
This is how the sign looked a year ago.
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This article from August states that thus far, $31 million has been raised by Make It Right to build homes and more.
Pitt’s an architecture aficionado, and Make It Right has mixed insightful designs by local architects with adventurous work by rising stars and big names from around the world. The firm GRAFT cloaked a long box on high columns in angled origami folds. The inwardly sloping roof of a cubic red house by Adjaye Associates forms an upper-level porch as it collects rainwater in a cistern. A zigzag roof shelters a house by the firm Morphosis Architects Inc. that can float.
The roofs of Make It Right houses form upward-angled sheds and inverted Vs not just for the sake of invention but to harvest breezes and shade outdoor space. The houses ambitiously incorporate other green tactics: geothermal wells, high levels of insulation and rain gardens that slow the flow of rain into the city’s storm-water system. That system is often overwhelmed by rain torrents even with billions spent on the problem.
Some of the houses have been awkwardly stripped down from grander compositions, but Make It Right delivers a lot of house for $150,000 or less in construction costs. (Some of the designs cost more. Pitt’s charity and other sources bridge the funding gap.)
Homeowners’ stories are here.
