Gloria's Designers Arrive

2/27/2007 8:29 PM

Let me begin by offering an apology. Due to some technical difficulties with the blog over the past few weeks, I am going to be playing some “catch up” on my entries. Some of the entries are out of date.

January 31st through February 4, 2007

Gloria’s Designers Arrive

On the evening of Wednesday January 31st a group of fourth and fifth year Architecture students from the University of Arkansas arrived here in New Orleans: Miss Gloria’s design team. This was the first of a few trips that had been planned for the studio to make it down to the building site. Being the first of these trips, the primary goal was to obtain an understanding of the site and the client, Miss Gloria. There were 3 primary people that the studio needed to meet with to begin to get themselves allocated to their surroundings.

The first of which is more of a group of people known as CITYbuild (www.citybuild.org). The CITYbuild consortium of schools has already completed a group of stellar projects within the city post Katrina that will serve as examples of how to approach the city as a whole. After spending Thursday morning measuring and photographing the existing building, the studio was taken on a tour by the directors of CITYbuild of the already finished projects within the city. These projects can be seen on the CITYbuild website mentioned above.

The second is Rev. Dejean the Gert Town unofficial mayor. Reverend Dejean is a local religious, community leader, and a force of nature. I will be doing a blog entry completely devoted to her story and the impact that she has had on the city of New Orleans. The studio had the opportunity to sit down and ask her many questions about the importance of the rebuilding of Gert Town and the role that Miss Gloria’s Kitchen plays in that. To say that she has been instrumental in the development of the project and its future completion is a huge understatement. Her passion for the community is addictive and provided a great amount of motivation for the studio while they were with her. We were very lucky to here her and her daughter and granddaughter sing a beautiful song, after which there was hardly a dry eye.

The last and most important person is Miss Gloria herself. It was so enjoyable to sit down and have discussion with a real client that we are going to build a real project for. I was actually concerned that Miss Gloria might feel a little overwhelmed by all of us asking her questions, but she simply glowed with excitement the entire time that everyone was talking with her. She told me later that when she saw all of us there that it was then that she knew that something was actually going to happen, and that is saying alot with the epidemic of broken promises in the town.

I think that for me and I would dare say for the studio as a whole that this project, more than any other that we have done, deals with the human side of Architecture. This project will not be designed for a photo shoot. It will not be designed tailored to win a specific predetermined award. Most of all, it will not be designed for an Architect. Miss Gloria’s Kitchen will be designed for Miss Gloria, and that means that we as designers have to get to know her.

jared