Katrina Coverage

From Rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf: Architects Respond:

The Mississippi Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal aims for no less than an "economic renaissance for coastal Mississippi," said its chairman Jim Barksdale, a former president and CEO of Netscape. To help create a physical plan, state officials invited New Urbanist Andres Duany, FAIA, to lead a charrette last month in Biloxi, one of Hurricane Rita's hard-hit targets. Joining him were 100 members of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), including transportation planners, environmentalists, code writers, sociologists, and representatives of such large AE firms as SOM, HOK, HDR, and UDA. General teams will deal with regional issues, and 11 specialized teams will fan out to the three-county area's 11 municipalities, Duany said in an interview prior to the charrette.

The immediate goal will be to "get our codes and land-use planning online," said Leland Speed, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority. Speed voiced the hope that local residents would leave the charrettes "informed, optimistic, and clear about their rebuilding possibilities and directions." He said he also wanted to "offer tools for creating the kind of coast we want 20 years from now."

The CNU will proffer a kit of architectural parts, Duany said, including designs for temporary cottages and permanent mobile homes (with contractors offering to build models), a selection of locally compatible house plans from catalogs of working drawings, models of pedestrian-oriented strip developments, and sketches for new casinos that would allow "participation in street life." Design, he added, won't be imposed but "given the incentive of pre-permitting." Duany hopes landowners who choose not to rebuild will be allowed to merge their properties and sell to highrise condominium developers. He envisions "great waterfront avenues." Urban Design Associates, meanwhile is helping Mississippi Habitat for Humanity design sturdier houses in keeping with the coast's climate and culture.

A report to be published three weeks after the charrette will comprise a major portion of the commission's report to the governor, which is due by the end of the year…

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