This semester long studio project focused on communicating the idea of Bayou as Infrastructure for the rebuilding of New Orleans. A
variety of methods were utilized to communicate this concept to the general
public. While formulating the concept I experimented with video animation and storytelling in conjunction with an
educational manual. After sharing these mediums with a general audience; I transitioned these ideas into a video
narrative and the creation of a representational interactive model of New
Orleans.
The interactive model proved to be a very effective communicative tool. Its working parts
were equally efficient at generating productive conversation. The audience became participatory members in
the process; feeling free to ask questions while the model was being assembled
before them as well as volunteering to help create the model for it was in
pieces; a complex puzzle to solve. The model itself was 6 feet long and depicted the landscape of New Orleans from
pre-settlement to present day and onward to future sustainable design
interventions. In many ways it was a performance piece; usually assembled on the floor with the audience gazing
downward. Presenting from the floor generates a common ground where even the shiest individual feels comfortable
enough to ask questions and make comments.
Another benefit of this representational form is that in conversations
following the model presentation; audience members actively disassembled and
reassemble model pieces in order to further their understanding of the
landscape of New Orleans.
The intended purpose of all the communicative representational techniques involved was to relay the importance of the dynamic
Mississippi Deltaic Plain landscape that New Orleans is part of. Public understanding of the systems at play
in this landscape will aid in future reconstruction efforts and hopefully lead
to sustainable development that respects these dynamic processes and utilizes
them. Another key component of the representational process is to convey the beauty of the bayou or swamp
landscape to the general public. Negative associations with the swamp still abound American culture. The swamp becomes a place of danger;
disease, and putrid atmosphere with associations of unproductive land and
savages. In direct contrast the swamp is a place of bounty and a sheltering paradise as experienced through the eyes
of the cultures that dwell within. Louisiana often celebrates this swamp culture through cuisine, music,
and fishing camps out in the bayou. Implementing these celebrations into the urban infrastructure of New
Orlean's built environment is an important concept to convey.
The interactive model is very useful in conveying these ideas. The greatest achievement of the
interactive model lies in its ability to relate concepts of infrastructure and
using bayou as infrastructure to control floodwaters, treat stormwater, create topsoil, and treat sewage. It enhances peoples understanding of these
systems on an urban scale. By understanding all of the beneficial services these landscape interventions provide, it makes
it much easier for a property owner to sell their piece of land and
flood-ravaged home on the backswamp and invest in revised property generated
through sustainable interventions. One is not losing a home to create a "park;" one
is gaining a home in a bayouscape whose amenities reach way beyond formal ideas
of park and open space.
What I enjoyed most about these experimentations in communicative techniques was their popular culture appeal and the grandness in
scale of these ideas. Landscape architects hold a skill set much more involved and evolved than other design
professions. One must understand culture, the environment, and scientific principles along with spatial and
artistic knowledge to reveal and transform landscapes. Frederick Law Olmsted was a master of this
technique. It is important never to lose site of the infrastructural and artistic impact landscape architects can
generate in the environment. To achieve this ideal; one must be a grand communicator, visionary, and employ the
appropriate tools to relay these concepts to the public at large. Bayou
as Infrastructure achieves these goals.
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