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PSU Architecture Students Traveling to New Orleans
Author: Angela D. Abel, Office of University Communications, 503-725-8794
Posted: March 26, 2007
Students hope to identify how Portland’s urban design successes can help

Fifteen Portland State architecture students and Architecture professor and department chair Rudy Barton are heading to New Orleans this week for a six-day trip to explore how Portland’s urban design successes can be applied to the hurricane-stricken city.

During their time in the city the students will perform volunteer work in preparation for Portland's upcoming Friendship Flight to New Orleans, conduct field research in a central city neighborhood and learn about the unique design and cultural fabric of New Orleans. They will utilize their urban-oriented design knowledge and skills on the ground in New Orleans and study a specific site that will be the focus of their spring quarter design studio back at PSU. At the conclusion of the studio, they will present their work to New Orleans officials and neighborhood residents.

“You really have to see New Orleans to believe it,” says Barton, a former New Orleans resident. “The city is very slowly rebuilding. You have to hear the resolve for rebuilding in the voices from each neighborhood. There is simply so much to be done. I believe New Orleans can learn from Portland and our students can learn so much from New Orleans about what gives a city a unique sense of place, so much of which has little to do with good architecture.”

Once back in Portland, the senior-level design studio will explore options for ‘living-above-the-store,’ which develops low-rise housing over retail and public institutions. Examples of this building typology include the Museum Place Safeway store on Southwest Jefferson in downtown Portland’s West End.

“Portland has several examples of this building typology,” says Barton. “This type of development is absent in New Orleans. Portland’s success with this building typology could provide encouragement and inspiration to New Orleanians trying to revive their neighborhoods.”

The students are funding half their expenses for the trip. Matching support has come from several Portland architectural firms, including SRG Partnership, TVA Architects, GBD Architects, YGH Architects and Thomas Hacker Architects.

Portland State students’ design studies are being coordinated with longer-term design studies conducted by Tulane University’s School of Architecture. Results of PSU studio’s design studies will be publicly exhibited in June in the Department of Architecture’s new home in the Unitus Building (2121 SW Fourth Ave.). For more information, please contact the PSU Department of Architecture at 503-725-8405.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#07-038)

Source: Rudy Barton (503-725-3339)
PSU Department of Architecture