Responding directly to the African American Jazz Funeral practices of New Orleans, NOCBM envisions a radically sustainable campus comprised of rammed earth buildings, flood resistant landscape, and spaces designed for healing. The vision plan connects public and private stakeholders to create better outcomes for the neighborhood while contributing to improved health of the broader city of New Orleans.
The campus of (5) flexibly programmed buildings supports an existing Funeral Home Business’s expansion plan with a transformative cultural campus situated within New Orleans’ Eighth Ward in the St. Roch neighborhood. Trahan Architects conducted detailed programming to graft community uses onto the basic needs of the Funeral Home Business – finding synergies that advanced the Client’s mission to provide a space for communal healing through the spatial framework of the Funeral Home.
The campus will connect people with nature to foster a physical, visual, and emotional relationship. Shaped to preserve the tradition of Jazz Funerals – the campus embeds New Orleans African Diaspora practices such as earth construction, wrought iron, and enslaved burial groves to create a space of belonging where all people can learn and thrive. The campus was shaped by the lived experiences of community members whose optimism and belief in the dignity of all people drove a design response that is both globally universal and authentically embedded in the social context of New Orleans.
Location
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
Status
Ongoing
Size
Total SF 25,900 SF
1. Headquarters 9,330 SF
2. Multi-Purpose Hall 3,580 SF
3. Museum 4,300 SF
4. Funeral Home 6,390 SF
5. Horse Shelter 2,300 SF
Certification
Targeting LEED Gold
Project Team
Trey Trahan, Robbie Eleazer, Oana Bunea-Velea, Brandon Lawry, Sandra Baggerman, Stephen Breaux, Margaret Jankowsky, Brian Richter, Gabriela Calzada, Henry Savoie, James Babin, Kevin Thomas, Paúl Duston-Muñoz, Michael Njo, Vincent Lai
Collaborators
SCAPE, Julien Engineering, Buro Happold, Threshold Acoustics, VPG Construction, SIREWALL, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Designing for Democracy (DFD)
Tags
Cultural
, Master Planning
, Atmosphere
, Materiality
, Rootedness
, Ecology
“Our burial practices are connected to a depth of tradition informed by African, African American, Caribbean and Indigenous peoples. In hiring Trahan Architects, we have found a team that has immense respect and humility to learn how deep these roots go, and how they can be communicated through building.”
“The spatial logics of the plantation also dictated the siting of Black cemeteries. Slave masters would not sacrifice valuable land for Black cemeteries. Enslaved people were thus interred in uncultivated lands at the back of the plantation, at the ever-retreating edge of the cypress forest. Denied stone, enslaved people often crafted simple wooden grave markers, which naturally decomposed over time. And sometimes, drawing on pan-African traditions, they planted magnolia and willow trees to mark the graves of their loved ones, cultivating ‘sacred groves’.”
-Forensic Architecture (2021)
Campus storm water masterplan anticipates the next 100 years of climate change providing increased safety to the neighborhood and protect the Owner’s investment. The buildings are elevated 5′ above street level for floor mitigation, and the Headquarters lifts the entire first floor to protect operational spaces from extreme flooding events.
By extending the arrival sequence through the building courtyards, the campus provides degrees of outsidedness rooting the project in the New Orleans context.
Buildings are themselves extensions of the campus landscape. The threshold between landscape and building is blurred through a series of framed views, protected courtyards, and walkways, similar in scale and feel to the organic network of alleys and hidden courtyards found in the French Quarter.
Rammed earth construction is used to connect the project to the regional soil types deposited over thousands of years by the Mississippi River with historic burial practices.
Rooted in sustainable design principles, the project aims to conserve natural resources while ensuring protection and resilience against extreme weather events. By incorporating culturally specific, environmentally responsible, and financially strategic decisions into the site and building design, the campus will establish a new model for investment in this area.
Each of the core NOCBM buildings are designed as multi-functional spaces that not only support the spatial requirements of a Funeral Home situated in New Orleans, but are also meant to be used by the community for healing, community, education, and more.
