Gehry Goes Vernacular For Make It Right Foundation

Architizer News

Gehry Goes Vernacular For Make It Right Foundation

July 13, 2012

Frank Gehry’s first home for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is now complete. The two-family home is located in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, the neighborhood that sustained some of the worst damage in Hurricane Katrina, and conforms to LEED Platinum Standards–achieved by including a large array of solar panels on the roof, using weathering-resistant materials for the siding, and high-efficiency roofing, among many other eco-products. Continue.

The design of the house, though, does not scream ‘Gehry,’ which is probably fortunate for the future homeowners. It seems that the starchitect magnanimously held himself back: “I wanted to make a house that I would like to live in and one that responded to the history, vernacular and climate of New Orleans. I love the colors that the homeowner chose. I could not have done it better.” While some might call the house ‘normative,’ or even ‘hum-drum,’ it does include some spectacular spaces, and an especially generous consideration of the outdoor ones. Each of the units contains a 500+ square foot covered roof terrace and several other terrace and porch spaces besides. In their project statement, Gehry Partners wrote, “Of the components of local vernacular, the majority of the community expressed a desire for quality outdoor space, especially the garden.” And it certainly seems they accommodated this desire.

The Make It Right Foundation has tapped twenty-one architects to design affordable and sustainable housing for New Orleans, including names such as Shigeru Ban, David Adjaye, Hitoshi Abe, MVRDV, and Morphosis, so there’s much more exciting architecture sure to come.