Trahan Architects was engaged to reinvent and replace the majority of a largely compromised building envelope for the existing 70,000 ft² headquarters for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (now named New Orleans & Company) on historic St. Charles Avenue. The renovation was carefully orchestrated and phased to allow occupants to continue working within the building during construction.

The existing interior office spaces were largely artificially lit with limited views to the exterior environment. The design team used the opportunity of the building’s skin replacement to increase the glazing percentage in order to maximize natural daylight within the interior. A new, custom metal rainscreen system was developed to clad the building exterior thereby providing a high-performance, water-tight enclosure. The textured, silver stainless steel finish of the rainscreen was selected in order to add color to the building – allowing the sky, trees and climactic conditions to change the reading of the building elevations throughout the day. To minimize solar heat gain and glare, a series of custom perforated louvers were designed to evoke a contemporary take on the historic shutters found throughout New Orleans.