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Puttin a Twist on Tradition
by Jessica Dore
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The Rebirth of Morris Jeff Community School
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Columns & Departments
Putting a Twist on Tradition:
A variation of the shotgun home brings together a diverse team of developers, architects, financial backers and builders to offer a new infill housing design for New Orleans neighborhoods
On June 17, at the site of a vacant lot on Ursulines Avenue and North Rocheblave Street in New Orleans’ historic Tremé, local artist and urban planner Robert Tannen and his design and development team unveiled a small-scale model of the Gehry-Tannen Modgun, an updated version of the traditional New Orleans shotgun house infused with contemporary solutions to modern housing issues.
Tannen designed the Modgun with residents returning from Hurricane Katrina in mind.
“The Modgun can be built one room at a time, allowing people to live in a sustainable, affordable house on their property, expanding as their budget would allow,” he said. “A principal goal of the Modgun design is to encourage neighborhood restoration within the downtown areas of New Orleans. Many families and others who either moved to suburban or were displaced by Katrina are considering a move back to older neighborhoods closer to public services, jobs, the CBD and cultural amenities. The Modgun is an ideal way of making such a change.”
The idea for the Modgun design developed in the days immediately following the storm to offer an approach that would allow builders or homeowners with limited funds to build one room at a time, adding rooms as needed and as funding allowed. The original modular units were also designed to be attached, if desired, to an existing house. Tannen also wanted to develop a sustainable and permanent post-disaster housing option as an alternative to less eco-friendly and storm-perishable trailers or Katrina Cottages.
He invited world-renowned architect Frank Gehry and green building advocacy group Global Green USA to recommend additional design elements that would make the home more sustainable and architecturally interesting.
Tannen has worked with Gehry on several projects during the past 25 years, including the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi and a group of decommissioned U.S. military sites for future ecotourism facilities in the former Panama Canal Zone.
“We are proud to be involved in the efforts to help rebuild homes in the heart of New Orleans,” Gehry said.
Several vacant home sites have been identified as candidates for the Gehry-Tannen Modgun project. The first model home, which will be built at 2501 Ursulines Avenue, will be offered to a family in need of housing from the area and will serve as an example to be replicated on other blighted and available sites in the city.
The Modgun will be built and supported by a team made up largely of African-American businesses including lead development partner Hal Brown and his firm Fortuné Development, LLC; architect Ray Manning; the Faubourg Fund, Liberty Bank and NewCorp Business Assistance Center.
Architect Joel Ross and builder Chris Meehan also serve on the project construction team.
Team members anticipate a second Modgun to be constructed on the vacant lot next to the first site, with additional Modgun homes to be built at other available locations.“With a twist”
Addressing some of the primary issues of the city’s unique post-Katrina housing struggle, the Modgun design is a shotgun “with a twist”—both literally and figuratively. It is geared toward sustainability, affordability, flexibility and compatibility with the traditional styles of most neighborhoods in New Orleans. But unlike the rigid, sliding pocket doors or walls which divide the rooms of the conventional shotgun, the rooms of the Modgun are conjoined by screened porches and strategic air-flow spaces designed for maximized air quality and natural cooling. Though prefabricated, the nature of the structure, which can stand as a single room or a cluster, is conducive to innovative lot use and property development, while remaining cohesive with the built and cultural characteristics of the city’s established neighborhoods.
The first full-scale Modgun, which was built by Tannen, Meehan and Ross, was presented at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art; and a full scale, one-room module has been on display since then at the Uptown property of Adam Marcus and Valerie Besthoff.
“The basic idea of the traditional single shotgun is a box of four or more almost square rooms, front to back, with a variety of gingerbread treatments on the front façade. The Gehry–Tannen Modgun is a new take on this house form by providing more flexibility and separating the rooms” said Tannen. “I envision this Modgun idea as a way for people to build faster and safer. This house is designed to withstand winds of 130 miles per hour and to fit within the context of our historic neighborhoods.”
Since each room of the Modgun is detachable, the Gehry-Tannen Modgun allows increased privacy, ventilation and improved air quality. Each room is designed to be equipped with its own heating and cooling unit, significantly reducing utility bills and energy use.
Also, while the humidity of New Orleans’ climate usually demands traditional air conditioning methods, the Modgun incorporates LEED green building industry standards conducive to natural heating and cooling. The Modgun, for example, features screened porches and separations between rooms that facilitate air flow. Oversized windows, doors and transoms also provide increased air circulation.
So far, the Modgun is being heralded as an exceptional infill design idea. Infill design refers to urban development taking place on vacant or undeveloped sites between other developments.
“It’s new, it’s creative, and it is bringing things forward, without mimicking the past. I’m really excited about this design, that it can go up quickly, and that its basic forms can be re-arranged in numerous different ways,” said Elliot Perkins, who is executive director of the Historic District Landmarks Commission. “I think it will be compatible in most any of our settings here in Tremé.”Filling the vacancies
As of May 2009, New Orleans was home to more than 65,000 unoccupied residential properties, according to a study released by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. With more than 30 percent of the city’s residential addresses vacant, re-population remains one of New Orleans’ greatest hurtles.
The high-vacancy rate throughout New Orleans’ neighborhoods is further complicated by the unique long, narrow shape of many of the vacant lots, a large number of which are nestled within historic districts surrounded by architectural landmarks.
“This new construction design that is affordable while meeting both the contemporary needs of homeowners as well as the requirements set by historic districts should help stimulate a more rapid repopulation of older neighborhoods in the core of the city,” said Tannen.
And the Faubourg Fund, a minority development firm that manages the RFP process for New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA), embraced the Modgun project as part of their local efforts to identify developers who can provide high quality, affordable housing.
“We are not building housing for people who can pay half a million dollars for a condo or some of the ritzier properties in the city,” Brown said. “We hope this new housing design will help New Orleanians return to the many neighborhoods of the city that offer excellent sites for development. We want our homes to look good and offer the charm of the historic neighborhoods, but with modern conveniences at an affordable price.”
Ommeed Sathe, director of real estate for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, is also excited about the design, but adds that widespread success will hinge on getting private individuals excited enough about the Modgun to also use its design to rebuild their homes as well.
“There are only about 4,000 (vacant lots) that are publicly controlled. So the big challenge is getting families, neighborhoods and communities to come back to restore their properties,” Sathe said. “It’s an innovative project and offers much of what we need to help bring back some of these neighborhoods. If we can offer a great product with our properties, we’re really hoping that the private market will follow us and property owners in the area will come back and reinvest in these neighborhoods.”
Tannen said the Modgun design will be submitted to the city departments that regulate planning, design and construction including the City Planning Commission, the Office of Safety and Permits and the Historic District Landmarks Commission. The team also plans to meet with area neighborhood associations and leaders to ask for support for the Modgun idea and projects.
