PROJECTS
621 DESIRE STREET - NEW ORLEANS, LA
This project in 2017 was a historic rehabilitation of a single shotgun house on the famous Desire Street in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. We stripped this small house to the 'barge board' frame, reconfigured its layout to add a bathroom and extra bedroom. As a landscape designer I also created several courtyards with a mixture of hardscapes flanked by lush Louisiana native plants and palms.
TRIANA HEALTH CLINIC - TRIANA, ALABAMA
I served as project manager and preservation consultant for the Triana Historical Society and Town of Triana on this culturally important structure in a small river town in North Alabama. The small house and garage was built as a game warden's residence for the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge during the Works Progress Administration, but served for fifty years as a health clinic for low-income Black residents in the region. The house was nearly lost by 2004 when the roof collapsed, but the Triana Historical Society raised money to cover its roof temporarily. Plans by local preservation architect Dave Ely were commissioned in 2015, but funding challenges and the pandemic delayed the project for many years. It was ultimately completed in 2023 and was used in its inaugural year for the traveling Smithsonian exhibit on rural life in America entitled "Crossroads: Change in Rural America"
ST JOHNS VILLAGE - PORTLAND, OR
In a partnership with St. Johns Church, Do Good Multnomah and the City of Portland, my organization served as project manager for this 19-unit 'sleeping pod' village in North Portland. Sleeping pods are single room occupancy buildings that provide houseless residents a transitional space to sleep in a climate controlled environment with place for storage of important belongings. I worked with modular builder MODS PDX to build out the sleeping pods and community buildings that contain the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry, and meeting space. As a carpenter, I put together a team of local woodworkers to customize the interior space with shelving, a bed and detailed trim work. Similarly, I organized volunteers to build out the perimeter fencing and landscape to create a trauma-informed campus.
MATERIAL REUSE PROGRAM - ATHENS, GA
As a graduate student at the University of Georgia I founded a program to divert campus construction waste in student-driven community projects. My program was adopted by the College of Environment + Design as an outreach unit housed within the Center for Community Design and Preservation. The program fit perfectly into the UGA 2020 Strategic Plan to reduce campus waste, but also to serve the three pillars of the University: Academics, Outreach and Research. Students from outside the design school, from Art to Engineering and Business school participated in coursework, individual student assignments and thesis work surrounding the concept of material reuse. Bringing my background in deconstruction from work in disaster recovery after Hurricane Katrina inspired my continued work in deconstruction in Athens, Georgia.