New Orleans has the worst urban heat island effect in the US due to its 18.5% low tree canopy coverage, urban growth, and poor management. Leading to climate-intensified environmental challenges including extreme temperatures, intense storms, and water pollution, the lack of forest is a risk to human and non-human health and security.
To mitigate urban challenges, the project proposes the incorporation of dynamic forest systems allowing people to experience heat rather than fear it. Trees have the potential to create safer environments and enhance natural systems combating heat and stormwater management. At the same time, connecting the community with their surrounding landscape and encouraging them to enjoy a resilient and aesthetic experience. This project applies this thinking by designing an urban forest in a critically underutilized space in a residential area of New Orleans to reconnect and secure the natural landscape and the city’s vulnerable neighborhoods.
New Orleans has recently implemented a Reforestation Plan to achieve 50% tree canopy coverage. Where challenges identified are seen as opportunities to strengthen the connection between the landscape and residents. This involves building an understanding of the benefits of trees, providing opportunities for residents to appreciate the aesthetic value of trees growing in limited spaces, and (re)purposing underutilized urban areas.
Stepping Stone Forest lands in St. Thomas Development Neighborhood a residential and industrial town in New Orleans. Its history was impacted by poverty, crime, and violence. This led to the demolishing and rebuilding of the area, relocating residents, and transforming the town into a mixed-income residential apartment neighborhood.
Therefore, the project is directed to the most vulnerable communities, where an urban forest can foster human interaction and life experiences. The goal of this project is not only to add trees to cool the city but to make residents experience the magic of trees in the city, so in the future they can be part of maintaining and increasing the tree canopy coverage. To achieve this goal, underutilized spaces were identified to (re)purpose them into productive tree plots, while trees are seeded, grown, and replanted. Residents can learn and appreciate their ecological system and have a public space to enjoy and gather while caring about their landscape. Each tree is replanted in parks, schools, sidewalks, or vacant lots in a stepping stone concept.
The park design looks in detail at the plant species’ phenology, growth, and construction cycle to choreograph and enhance through seasons the magic of an urban forest. It also considers the experience of residents moving and interacting in the park while being flexible enough to encourage people to recreate outside even if the heat is extreme. The park’s dynamic design allows all ages to experience heat and coolness, light and shadow, compression and expansion through time, movement, and stillness. The change over time and the aesthetic experience foster residents to have a strong connection with the landscape that surrounds them, making them care for and value the landscape through time.
Stepping Stone Forest
Student Name: Jaime Andres Andrade Constante
University: Auburn University
Supervisor: William Shivers