Actor Brad Pitt announces design competition aimed at rebuilding parts of New Orleans

AP/WWL-TV | 4/20/2006 | Leyna linton

[dueler88]

i say this as a licensed architect that has studied vernacular architecture of flood-prone and semi-tropical regions . . .

this is actually a great entry. use of recycled materials. overhangs as sunshades. maximize natural ventillation by use of windows on opposing sides of the home. you know it's going to flood, so you build it on stilts.

when the french first started colonizing new orleans, they figured out the important stuff pretty quick - that it WILL flood, so you'd better design your building around that simple fact. note that nearly every plantation house and french creole cottage down there has been flooded at one time or another - often repeatedly. all of the critical living spaces are above the ground floor. when it starts flooding, you move your important stuff upstairs and wait for the waters to recede.

also note that most of the buildings that were undamaged by the flooding were built before the 1920's, with the main floor at least 4 feet off the ground. homebuilders in the area, for some reason, have since forgotten that floods happen when you live below sea level in the semi-tropics.

those that WANT to live in new orleans will figure out a way to make it happen. socialist social engineering won't work. new orleans has a golden opportunity to hoist itself from the swamp (forgive the pun) of dependency.

there are many citiziens who WANT to pitch in and make new orleans great again. they will do it if government will "promote the[ir] general welfare and let them DO IT.

[Mr.Atos]

I couldn't have said it better, Suzi. And I delivered an address about that very subject once.

The fact is, "a conceptual vision" and good will do not necessarily go hand in hand. Good will alone will not beget good design, any more than its absense will negate great architecture. Hitler had a grand scheme with Speer. The Romans built empires on good will, didn’t they? Marie said ‘let them eat cake’ from Versailles after bankrupting France to have it built. Imhotep designed pyramids for Pharoahs… using slaves. The temple of Huitzilopochtli was built for human sacrifice. And the Parthenon celebrated delusional titans above humans.

Good will? Uh huh! Yeah Brad. “Now get behind the car and push”

[NathanR]

Pruit Igoe was built in the middle 50's for lower middle class people who were expected to have a sense of community. When I visited it during a college Sociology field trip in the middle 60's, it had already made a name for itself as a pest hole. It limped on for years after that, until it was finally destroyed in 1972.

[BlessedBeGod]

Has anyone, anywhere, at anytime spouted a more vapid, inane, empty-headed crock of mindless drivel than presented in that paragraph?

If they have, it was another actor spouting off about something else they don't know anything about.

[WV Mountain Mama]

I hope they build environmentally friendly buildings that can float if they have to...

[nothingnew]

Marinated deer tenderloin on the grill. Big pan of fried potatoes w/bacon and onion. Baked beans. Brocolli slaw.

Got recipes for those two? Sounds extremely delicious.

FMCDH(BITS)

[RichInOC]

My modest proposal: A trebuchet in Woldenberg Park, trained across the river, with Ray Nagin first up in the pouch. Assign point values to various Algiers landmarks.

"What time is it?"
Ready...
'"I dunno...."
...Aim...
"Time...to unpimp ze city!"
...Fire.

[Darlin']

Oh, good grief ! What an utterly ridiculous waste he has turned out to be. New Orleanians as well as most South Louisianians could tell Mr Pitt a lot about building for the "needs of the people inhabiting it. It's about the sun, wind, the temperature of the place, their well-being, their quality of life, they go hand in hand." Good architecture, my eye ! They could care less about "good architecture" they just want their homes built back in the same place where so many generations of their families have lived before them. They aren't interested in "Green USA" or a cookie cutter, disneyesque design. They want a place that looks and feels and sounds like home to them, not what some self absorbed actor feels they need. .

Whatcha wanna bet, Brad Pitt never set foot in the 9th Ward or any of the surrounding neighborhoods prior to Katrina. I'm not aware that he has been down there since the storm either.

[Kimmers]

You dun won an '87 Buick...comes with its on cinder blocks

[dighton]

Eero Saarinen Draws Up Blueprint To Restructure Motion Picture Academy

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Used Moore's (original hickory) marinade on the tenderloin, mostly because I was busy earlier in the day and just an hour or two in Moore's will do the trick. My homemade formula really needs marinade all day or overnight.

Very few of my recipes are written down -- I cook from memory or make it up along the way. But I will approximate quantities and write down the ingredients, then FReepmail you. Give me a day or so, please.

[Centurion2000]

Pitt said, ""Good architecture is not about building a pretty box and putting it on a piece of land. It's about the needs of the people inhabiting it. It's about the sun, wind, the temperature of the place, their well-being, their quality of life, they go hand in hand. Good architecture cannot exist truthfully without good will," he said."

After reading that; he did Jennifer Anniston a favor by leaving her. Her children would have lost 50 IQ points from the blending.

[napscoordinator]

Simply put, Pitt is the white Cynthia McKinney....a clueless dumba$$ and proud of it.


Oh come on that is not exactly true. First Cynthia would have bashed the President, Brad Pitt did not. Cynthia would have yelled racism. Brad Pitt did not. I don't agree with his living conditions, but this to me is something he feels compasionate about. I am giving him big cudos for not bashing the President and I think you should too. I understand what you mean about clueless because he probably thinks this is an easy endeavor, but he will find out that he was a bit nieve on this project.

[Centurion2000]

"Time...to unpimp ze city!"

After New Orleans, that trebuchet would have a LARGE number of stops in the rest of the US.

[untrained skeptic]

Brad Pitt. One of Hollywierds most popular well meaning idiots.

Acting is one of the few jobs in which you can be very talented at what you do yet at the same time be that delusional and lacking in common sense. He's wealthy. He's successful. He even seems to mean well. However, he can't seem to grasp anything beyond the superficial.

[aculeus]

Global Green, the US arm of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's Green Cross International, is providing technical assistance in green standards for 10,000 buildings in New Orleans.

[ViLaLuz]

[Neville72]

"Marinated deer tenderloin on the grill. Big pan of fried potatoes w/bacon and onion. Baked beans. Brocolli slaw."



DAAYY-UMMM. I just finished dinner and that makes me hungry all over again.

Who bagged the venison?

[usmcobra]

My entry.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"Who bagged the venison?"

I'm so tickled that you asked. I did -- it was my first buck and only my third deer ever. Just a seven point, but I was thrilled. He eats real good too!