Tulane Design in Central City is URBANBuild's First LEED Silver-Certified House
The house at 2036 Seventh Street, designed and built by Tulane University architecture professors and students, has been certified LEED Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council. Located in the Central City neighborhood, this is the first LEED-certified project for Tulane and the Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, who collaborated through a program called URBANbuild.
This New Orleans house, designed and built by Tulane architecture students, has been certified LEED Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council.
URBANbuild is a design and construction program of the School of Architecture. Students both design and build prototypical houses in inner city neighborhoods in affiliation with Neighborhood Housing Services, a nonprofit organization that concentrates on affordable housing and neighborhood redevelopment. Neighborhood Housing Services provides the land and financing for the development of the URBANbuild homes, which are then sold to a first-time homebuyer who has completed a training program.
A ceremony will be held on Friday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. where Byron Mouton, director of URBANbuild, and Kenneth Schwartz, dean of the Tulane School of Architecture, along with Lauren Anderson, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services, will present the LEED certificate to the homeowner. Many of the students involved in the design and build of the house will be in attendance. The press is invited to attend.
“Engaging the LEED for Homes certification process throughout the design and construction phases of URBANbuild"s fourth prototype has been educational and deeply rewarding for the design students and faculty at Tulane School of Architecture, our housing partners at Neighborhood Housing Services, and especially our new homeowner,” says Mouton. “As with all of URBANbuild"s design-build projects, we hope our experience is one that other developers and institutions can look toward as a model and a starting point for more environmentally responsible, well-designed homes.”
The home"s construction includes a number of green features, including advanced insulation, low-emissivity windows, Energy-Star electrical fixtures and an energy saving air conditioner, as well as sustainably harvested and manufactured materials like bamboo flooring and zero-VOC interior paint. The project is in a historic neighborhood with close access to public transportation and community services.
“The challenge that NHS presents to the Tulane architecture students is to design and build a contemporary home that is affordable to a working class family,” says Anderson. “The achievement of LEED Certification for this home is significant because it was done in a cost efficient manner.”
