Thesis Highlights

"Basin Street Skyway"

Alec Paulson, 2022

"Basin Street Skyway: Connecting Communities and Stitching Divides at the Lafitte Greenway"

Where the Lafitte Greenway exists today was once the Carondelet Canal, a long water way that stretched from the French Quarter up to Bayou St. John. The canal connected to the quarter at the old turning basin, once a lively public square full of industry. After being filled and left for neglect, almost a century later, the formal canal site was revitalized as the Lafitte Greenway and opened in 2015. As a linear public park, the Greenway stitches neighborhoods together up to Bayou St. John as a green throughway starting above the French Quarter. The connection between the onset of the Greenway and the quarter itself, however, is disrupted by barriers in the existing urban landscape, notably Basin St. and some of the surrounding parking lots. How can these obstacles be overcome to enhance the connection between the Lafitte Greenway and the heart of New Orleans?

This proposal seeks to improve pedestrian connectivity in the area between the Lafitte Greenway and the French Quarter, specifically enhancing the connections between surrounding programs which currently have little to no physical communication with one another. Connecting paths linking these programs are established to create a new public infrastructure that works within the physical limits of its urban site to conceive a network of dynamic public spaces. These new intermediary public spaces respond to the context of the existing programs they connect while overcoming site barriers to enhance general connectivity within the area and establish continuity with the Greenway.

WORK