Student work featured

Four recent alumni from Tulane School of Architecture presented their thesis projects at the 112th annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in Vancouver, BC, in March 2024.

Mitchell Hubbell (M.Arch *23)

Mitchell Hubbell, who is also a former Adjunct Instructor at TuSA, presented his graduate thesis as part of the research session entitled Design: Blurring Domestic/Territorial Lines. Hubbell’s work focuses on the relationship between strip malls and surrounding residential areas.

Hubbell writes of the project: "Adapting Boundaries addresses the recurrent boundary condition between a strip mall’s rear face and the neighborhood behind, promoting high density, low-rise housing and encouraging neighborhood connectivity. The site of investigation is a strip mall in the Los Angeles neighborhood of North Hollywood. Los Angeles became the investigated city for its legacy of post-war urbanism, its history as the birthplace of strip malls, and the recent California legislation promoting commercial to residential site conversions.

The project offers an alternative to the large-scale redevelopment of retail centers with incremental housing that preserves small-scale retail tenants, often vital to communities. Designed to fit on sites with limited depth, the primary living space of the thin housing unit is elevated for ground-level porosity and the flow of existing activities beneath. Strategies developed in this project can be distilled and replicated on strip mall sites across North America to provide housing for communities in need."

Megan Spoor (M.Arch *23)

Megan Spoor presented her graduate thesis "Beyond Retreat, Occupying the Intertidal Edge" at the Environmental Ecology research session. Spoor’s work analyzes the boundaries between coastal regions and water infrastructure systems in the United Kingdom.

Spoor writes: "Our inhabitation of coastal regions relies heavily on hard, grey infrastructure. We hold back tides, drain land, and divert rivers, damaging ecosystems and creating precarious stability for low-lying communities. As future climate scenarios exceed our existing structural defenses, we have an opportunity to redefine our relationship with the dynamic coastal landscapes we occupy. Can we shift from an approach of structural control, to one of ecological collaboration?

The UK Shoreline Management Plan has identified areas along the Welsh coastline where structural defense against sea level rise is no longer viable. These communities will face large-scale relocation as hard infrastructure is allowed to fail, resulting in a loss of culture, identity, and livelihood.

Responding to the absence of existing UK policies for managing displacement due to sea level rise, this session presents a spatial framework for the reconfiguration of our coastal zones. By reframing risk through nature-based regenerative practices, elevation-based zoning, and raised datum occupation, the session explores inhabitation driven by dynamic hydrological systems. What does it look like to improve our relationship with the coast, whilst paradoxically retreating from its edge?"

Sean Fowler (M.Arch *23)

Sean Fowler, who also serves as a current Visiting Research Assistant Professor at TuSA, presented his graduate thesis: "Water, Water Everywhere: Water challenges in New Orleans and the possibilities of distributed infrastructures " at the Urban Design, Planning + Infrastructure research session. Fowler’s work proposes a solution to the many challenges posed by water in the city of New Orleans.

Fowler writes: 'New Orleans faces water-based challenges from all directions. Sea level rise and Mississippi River flooding threaten to overwhelm the Post-Katrina levee system. The city is dependent on the Mississippi River for drinking water: droughts, saltwater intrusion, and chemical byproducts and PFAS from 'Cancer Alley' threaten this supply. Stormwater is managed with century-old pumps requiring huge amounts of power,maintenance, and infrastructure. Entire neighborhoods are subsiding from groundwater removal. Fixed and single-purpose infrastructures have divided the urban fabric of New Orleans. The benefits of these infrastructures are unequally distributed across the city and are insufficient to manage current challenges.

This project can reduce the demand on legacy fixed infrastructures by converting car-centric streets into performant, multi-purpose spaces. These streetscapes can also provide green and ecological spaces which filter runoff and reduce urban heat islands, create new 'front yards' within dense residential neighborhoods, and reclaim other urban spaces for public use. This distributed stormwater management can also be extended to provide a potential future source for treatable drinking water separate from the water level and pollution impacting the Mississippi River."

Ethan Lewis (B.Arch/BSRE '23)

Ethan Lewis presented "Backyard Building: Rethinking New Orleans Single-Family Neighborhoods Through Prefabricated Accessory Dwelling Units." Lewis’s presentation was an abridged presentation on his interdisciplinary honors thesis in undergraduate architecture and real estate and its role in influencing legislation legalizing detached ADUs in his hometown.

Lewis writes: "New Orleans must revitalize suburban neighborhoods with densification and diversification without displacement as residents age and family types diversify. Underutilized spaces on homeowners’ lots offer enormous potential as a catalyst for transformation. Implementing affordable, pre-approved, and prefabricated Accessory Dwelling Units and concurrent investments in the block’s infrastructure will create a powerful symbiosis between sustainable communities, modular construction, and wealth generation."