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The premise of this project is to reconnect portions of the city that have been separated since the construction of, first, the railroad and, second, Interstate 10 permanently interrupted the flow of the city’s urban fabric. It addresses the problems of a community long divided by a cement artery, which flooded heavily and which lacked provisions for evacuation or safe harbor. Focusing on the area of Mid-City and the Claiborne Corridor this project re-imagines the city as a unified and safe space.
The proposed design suggests an elevated highway that would replace ground level portions of Interstate 10, which follow the old Claiborne corridor. This proposal would provide an improved evacuation route and would reconnect neighborhoods on either side of the interstate with new construction spanning the space beneath the newly raised section of the highway. Accommodated here are a festival plaza, shops, parks, and housing, all of which are envisioned to serve the pedestrian. New pedestrian pathways would better link this area with the remainder of the city and recover land for public use.
Key features of the project are a sports complex to be built in the shadow of the superdome—housing amateur sports facilities—and a commercial center “planted” between sloping lawns, which transform the current cement city into a paradise of recreational green space.