Pitt: Help me, Bill McDonough
by Hawes Spencer
published 8:24am Thursday Dec 27, 2007
published 8:24am Thursday Dec 27, 2007
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Famous actor Brad Pitt has invited famous Charlottesville architect William McDonough to help him “make it right.” That’s the name of Pitt’s effort to repopulate New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, the impoverished below-sea-level neighborhood devastated two years ago by Hurricane Katrina. Pitt has enlisted McDonough, along with other leading “green” architects, to prove his premise that hurricane-proof housing can be built with Crescent City flavor for under $150,000. The New York Times has this story.
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Oh, bungalows on stilts painted green. How innovative. I hope they can treat the wood so that it won’t rot in the swamp.
And an Escalade in every carport. Hybrid, of course!
There’s nothing “sustainable” about building back in the Ninth Ward. It’s either going to flood again or take a huge amount of energy and infrastructure to keep it from flooding again. It’d be better for the environment and the people if Brad Pitt built his green houses on land above sea level. The wetlands that were destroyed to build where nobody should have to live could be restored. I think this is more about Brad Pitt’s sentimental vision of New Orleans than what is really good for people and the environment.