Riverfront Design Wins National Awards, Finalists Selected
By Sean Cummings on Apr 16 2008 at 11:00 AM
Reinventing the Crescent, the New Orleans Building Corporation’s (NOBC) transformative design for the New Orleans Riverfront,
has won the National 2008 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Honor Award for Analysis and Planning. Said the
Professional Awards jury, “The landscape architect (Hargreaves Associates) used compelling urban design gestures to deal with
very difficult problems at a critical time for this great city. The analysis was particularly strong.” The jury considered over 500
entries. Awards will be present in October at the ASLA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
The New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) also bestowed its top Award for Master Planning and Urban
Design on Reinventing the Crescent. According to Melissa Urcan, Executive Director of AIA New Orleans, “Out of the many entries
in the Master Planning and Urban Design Category, this project was granted an Award of Honor from the jury because of the
visionary aspect of the project overall. This was one of the few projects that presented a clear vision of what a potentially ‘new’ New
Orleans might be in both a positive and hopeful manner that all of the jury members recognized.”
In February 2007, NOBC hired an internationally acclaimed team, led by Alex Krieger, George Hargreaves, Enrique Norton and
Allen Eskew, to prepare the bold plan to reconnect the city to its legendary river. “This plan is spectacular,” says Mayor C. Ray
Nagin. The design reflects this city’s signature sense of Place while encouraging contemporary expression of it in this Time. Says
Sean Cummings, the CEO of NOBC, “Great cities never lose the capacity to reinvent themselves, and I can think of no better way to
welcome the world to New Orleans’ 300th birthday than to share with people one of the most beautiful riverfronts in the world.” Says
City Council President Arnie Fielkow, “I think this is the most exciting project the city has seen in decades, maybe in its history.”
The richly rendered plan offers some of the smart new economic infrastructure that will enable New Orleans to flourish in the 21st
Century. A stunning new performance venue, cruise ship terminals, and educational institutions are situated among more than 70-
acres of parks and gathering spaces, providing abundant access to the New Orleans waterfront for the first time in modern history.
There is also significant emphasis on sustainable “green” design.
Cummings reports that the Corporation’s Board, which includes Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Dr. Norman Francis and Arnie Fielkow,
approved the plan unanimously in January 2008. Now, with strong support from Mayor Nagin, the City Council, the Port of New
Orleans, the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Audubon Institute, the Hotel Motel Association and
others, NOBC is leading the way to invest more than $294 million along the riverfront. The project is sequenced in three phases
from 2008 to 2016. Key estimates from the organization’s economists predict that it will create more than 24,000 new jobs, nearly
$3.6 billion in new, private investment, and more than $63 million annually in new tax revenue for the State and for the City.
Maintaining the momentum for Reinventing the Crescent, NOBC issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to select a design team
to execute Phase One. Submissions were received on April 07 and four teams which include some of the world’s finest talents in
landscape, engineering and architecture have been selected. Finalists come from around the state and around the globe including
visionaries such as Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Arhitects (New Haven) and Steven Holl (New York). They include emerging stars
like Michael Maltzan (Los Angeles) and David Adjaye (London). They include acclaimed landscape architects Hargreaves
Associates (Cambridge), Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (New York) and Abel Bainnson Butz (New York), as well as planners
Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden (Vancouver), and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz (Cambridge). They include leading locals in Coleman
Coker, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, John C. Williams Architects, Billes Architects, Perez, Morphy Makofsky, Moses Engineers,
Waldemar S. Nelson, and Futureproof among many.
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