LSU Architecture Team’s Post-Katrina Project Revived Community, Inspired Future Response Efforts
August 14, 2025
“It’s a time I will never forget. We knew we had to do something,” said Marsha Cuddeback, professor and director of the LSU School of Interior Design, remembering Hurricane Katrina’s impact on Louisiana and the LSU design faculty and students who worked together to create what so many New Orleans residents lost: homes.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005, a team of LSU School of Architecture students and New Orleans residents began building new homes in the Lower Ninth Ward, working together to start the long process of rebuilding the storm-ravaged Crescent City.
“Despite only being an hour away in Baton Rouge, I felt very distant from the tragedy going on in New Orleans,” said Erik Strain, AIA, NCARB (LSU Bachelor of Architecture 2008 graduate.) “Being involved in the 3-30-1 Project Build in the Lower Ninth brought me into communities where I'd never been and gave me the opportunity to see the floodwater destruction firsthand.
“The majority of homes had been torn down, and the ones still standing bore the search and rescue 'X' marking, indicating which buildings had been searched and cleared. Seeing what was left of the community and meeting some of the residents who were dedicated to staying, it really brought home the impacts from the storm and flooding.”
“Seeing what a flood does to a city is eye-opening,” said classmate Houston Wurtele (BArch 2008). “I remember the National Guard patrolling when we first went down to New Orleans to study the sites and survey the damage about 6-8 weeks after the storm. It was unforgettable.
“There was nothing occupied in the Ninth Ward at the time. The area was completely vacated; very few people back in their homes; everything had been flooded. The houses we built were some of the first homes to go back up in the area.”
The architecture students designed the new homes to be built, honoring the historical context of the place while aiming to adapt the homes for the future. “We put a lot of thought and care into the layouts, getting natural light into the homes, trying to improve upon what had originally existed.”
An Impactful Experience
Thirteen months after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, construction began on these first new homes.
“It was a totally impactful experience. For most people in our class, it was our first time with construction experience,” Wurtele said.
He became close with fellow architecture alumna Loren Brouillette (BArch 2008), AIA—now technical director & senior associate architect at Gensler—while working on the project. They are now married.
During construction, the houses became nontraditional classrooms utilized for on-the-job training. Participants included 13 fourth-year LSU architecture students, men from a substance abuse center, youth from a homeless shelter (many who had been abandoned during and after the storms), and a team from a West Bank Vietnamese community.
“It changed their lives,” Cuddeback said. “The impact on students was extraordinary. The greatest memory was seeing the students bonding with the other members of the construction team as they were creating the homes.”
“Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the fall semester, their day began at 5 a.m., traveling 70 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to begin work at 7 a.m.,” Cuddeback said. In addition to assisting with the construction, students were required to document the process and write a daily reflection of their experience.
“I remember our class had fun doing the labor, and we spent so much time together,” Wurtele said. “We became close on the carpool drives down three times a week, bringing our bagged lunches with us and eating together with the crew.”
Practical, Hands-On Experience
The students gained practical hands-on construction experience that they carried forward through their careers.
“Students learn best that which they directly experience, critically examine in the context of diverse perspectives, and use in meaningful applications,” Cuddeback said.
“ The whole experience set the stage for what I’m doing today. ”
“Thinking back on it, it was the first time having a real construction experience building something that I had helped design. I was exposed to all of challenges that come with building a structure. It was a great learning experience,” Wurtele said, who is now director of development at Crest Residential in Birmingham, Ala.
“After building those first homes in New Orleans, I realized I loved designing residential architecture,” he said. “It’s nice building homes that people are going to live in. It’s the place where families will spend so much of their lives. Now I’m doing similar projects, just at a larger scale today.”
“Moving into my professional career, that experience continued to fuel a passion for construction, and I later spent several years providing construction contract administration in a multi-phased airport construction project,” Strain said. He is now senior aviation architect & senior associate at Gresham Smith in Dallas, Texas.
Celebration Amid the Desolation
Five months later, as a crowd gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the homes, the sounds and sights of demolition continued in the neighborhood. The demolition crews were still hard at work removing the remaining destroyed houses and carting the debris away.
“Unfortunately, crushed building material is not all they take with them,” Cuddeback observed. “The memories of the place are attached to the debris, and as each lot is swept clean, the remembrances of the neighborhood fade further into the distance.
“As the demolition crews pack up and move to another house to be razed, they do so with seemingly no reason to their pattern of destruction. Adjacent houses are left standing only to be removed two or three weeks later, and as the houses disappear, so do the memories; leaving only an overwhelming sense of desolation.
“The fact is that there is little to be seen but block after block of empty lots where houses were demolished or twisted and leaning houses awaiting the arrival of the demolition crew. Eighteen months after the storm, they are still a harsh reminder of the extraordinary losses that occurred.”
One student summarized her reaction to the physical environment, saying at the time, “The desolation was real and in your face. The isolation was tangible, and the solution so vague and hard to grasp.”
Small Signs of Rebirth
However, there is hope. For the discerning observer, there are small signs that signal rebirth. “As a country, we have great experience with homebuilding on undeveloped land in the suburbs, but know little about repopulating a city, rebuilding in places like these.”
The politics of the Lower Ninth Ward are complex, and there are conflicting points of view regarding its resettlement, Cuddeback said. “There are many questions about where to reconstruct after disasters in places prone to flooding. It was an opportunity for the students to learn about all the competing concerns and begin to understand the need for sustainable housing in [coastal cities like] New Orleans.”
The project provided a model for how to address the issues of reconstruction after natural disasters.
“And then there are the longtime residents who want to come home. Mrs. Geraldine Butler and Ms. Gwendolyn Guice, owners of the new homes, consider themselves pioneers. Mrs. Butler’s original house was built by her husband in 1949 when the area was mostly woods.”
“As she said, ‘I was here the first time this neighborhood grew up and I’m back, to watch it come back.’ What the pundits underestimated is the power of place. It seems everyone you talk to has, or had, a relative that lived there at one time. It is etched in the minds of the people of New Orleans, and for them it would not be New Orleans if there were no Lower Ninth.”
The Power of Perseverance
Active participation in this project broadened LSU students’ learning in dimensions that go beyond the classroom, Cuddeback said. The opportunity to participate in this experience shaped their outlook for life.
“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to spend that semester outside of the classroom, learning hands-on skills while making a difference in the lives of those families who'd had their world turned upside down by Katrina,” Strain said.
“ Our students were immersed in the challenges of a post-Katrina environment and had untold opportunities to reflect on their professional responsibility to civic engagement. ”
“Coming into the project, the idea of building two houses with a team of unskilled workers seemed very daunting. So much goes into constructing a house that it becomes overwhelming. But before I knew it, the houses were completed. This made me realize that I could handle the biggest, and most overwhelming of projects,” Cuddeback said at the time.
“It was a great change of pace being able to learn in the field vs. being in the classroom,” Brouillette said. “Getting to use your hands, power tools, etc. and understanding sequencing of construction for the first time.”
“I learned a lot from this project. I had never used most of the power tools before, and now I can say I know how to use all of them. I also learned about the progression of construction. I realized the general sequence before: floor, walls, roof, but now I know the joints, and I’ve seen the joints. I can now apply this knowledge to the projects I design. I now know how things are built – not just how I want them to look when finished,” she said upon completion of the project.
After the hurricanes impacted Louisiana, Cuddeback decided she wanted to learn, as a practicing architect and interior designer, more ways to prevent hurricane damage. “We asked the questions: What else can be done to housing/buildings in order for them withstand catastrophic weather?”
Running parallel to the many challenges the team faced, they also experienced the successes of collaboration, the power of perseverance, the value of diversity, and the students witnessed, firsthand, the impact that two small houses had on the psyche of the neighborhood and a renewed commitment of neighbors to rebuild and return.
“I think we set the groundwork that the community can continue to build on in the future years,” one student said after project completion. “I learned that they are so grateful for even the smallest things. Also, I learned they must have given up hope, because we were the only ones working in the whole area for a long time.”
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