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2011 WORKSHOP EVENT SUMMARY

2011 WORKSHOP ARCHIVE

2010 WORKSHOP EVENT SUMMARY

2010 WORKSHOP ARCHIVE

ORGANIZERS
Elizabeth C. English - Buoyant Foundation Project and University of Waterloo, Canada
	Dr. Elizabeth English is currently Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. She was formerly Associate Professor - Research at the LSU Hurricane Center and has held Assistant or Visiting Professorships at Tulane University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan and Rhode Island School of Design. She holds an AB in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University, an MS in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MS and PhD in Architectural Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Her areas of research include the study of wind loads on tall buildings, the aerodynamics of wind-borne debris and strategies to mitigate hurricane damage to buildings. She has lectured extensively across the United States and Canada, and also in the Netherlands, France, the UK, Russia, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. English is the Founder and Director of the Buoyant Foundation Project, which seeks to retrofit existing shotgun houses in flood-prone areas with amphibious foundations. When not teaching in Canada she resides in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where she continues her work on hurricane damage mitigation with particular application to post-Katrina New Orleans.
Petra Marar - Building Resilience Workshop Organizer
	In coastal Louisiana, Petra Marar has found her anchor for an investigation of the complex relationships between human societies and ecology. Since moving to New Orleans in 2009 after graduating Sarah Lawrence College with a BA in Design Studies, Marar has studied Louisiana’s coastal communities and the lifecycle of another wetlands community, Iraq’s marsh Arabs, at Bard Urban Studies in New Orleans, worked as a continuing education program developer at FutureProof sustainable design consultancy, and assisted in the organization of the first and second annual Building Resilience Workshops. These experiences have shaped her knowledge of the region’s vulnerable ecosystems, their impacts on cultural, economic, and social aspects of affected communities, and the complex solutions at their intersection. Marar has discussed the crisis of wetlands loss and the need for the Gulf’s improved ecological health with over 2,500 citizens in her work as a field manager for the Gulf Restoration Network’s outreach campaign. This upcoming year Marar will begin a professional degree program in Landscape Architecture at Cornell University.
Emily Wessel – Intern Architect, Building Resilience Workshop Organizer
	Emily Wessel is an Intern Architect and has worked for five years as a designer and job captain at architecture firms in San Francisco, Vancouver and the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. Wessel is an assistant organizer for the Building Resilience Workshop II. Her interests lie in design that fits within and responds to natural systems to form sustainable, beautiful and resilient built environments. She has studied in Canada, Mexico and Italy. Wessel recently participated on a team submission for the Living City Design Competition, which envisions cities in balance with the ecosystems they inhabit. Wessel received her Bachelor of Environmental Studies and Master of Architecture degrees from the University of Waterloo.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

• Charles Allen III (Office of Coastal and Environmental Affairs, City of New Orleans)
• Robert Barker (Baca Architects, UK)
• Robin Barnes (GNO Greater New Orleans, Inc.)
• Alyssa Belsome (Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine)
• Maria Brodine (Columbia University)
• Craig Colten (LSU)
• Alejandra Coutts-Lopez (King’s College, London, UK)
• Sofia Curdumi (Tulane University)
  
• Mark Davis (Tulane University)
  
• Elizabeth English (Buoyant Foundation Project & University of Waterloo, Canada)
  
• Joe Evans (FutureProof)
  
• Monica Teets Farris (UNO-CHART)
  
• David O. Ferris (LA Delta Service Corps, Delta Action Working Group & ENGAGE)
  
• Joseph Frank (Buoyant Foundation Project)
• Patty Gay (Preservation Resource Center)
  
• Michael Hunnicutt (FEMA)
  
• Brian Jackson (EDF Environmental Defense Fund)
  
• Lisa Miles Jackson (IGS Innovative Green Solutions Inc.)
  
• Alessandra Jerolleman (NHMA Natural Hazard Mitigation Association)
  
• Shirley Laska (UNO-CHART)
  
• James Crorey Lawton (USACE)
  
• Marc Levitan (NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology)
  
• Belinda Little-Wood (Naval Support Activity New Orleans Advisory Task Force)
• Kathleen Lunn (the Alchemy Group)
  
• Ray Manning (Manning Architects)
  
• Petra Marar (BRW Organizer)
  
• Douglas Meffert (Tulane University)
  
• Grasshopper Mendoza (Latter & Blum)
  
• Colleen Morgan (Bayou Rebirth)
• Nancy Mock (Tulane University)
• Earthea Nance (UNO-CHART)
• Tracy Nelson (Lower 9th Ward CSED)
• Angela O'Byrne (Perez Architects)
• Tim Osborn (NOAA Office of Coast Survey)
  
• Ajulo Othow (Oxfam America)
• Kristina Peterson (UNO-CHART)
  
• Steve Picou (LSU Ag Center)
• Christopher Pulaski (National Wildlife Federation)
  
• Denise Reed (UNO University of New Orleans)
• Thomas Rush (GNO Greater New Orleans, Inc.)
• Cynthia Sartou (Gulf Restoration Network)
• Kenneth Schwartz (Tulane School of Architecture)
• Elizabeth "Boo" Thomas (C-PEX Center for Planning Excellence)
  
• Prisca Weems (FutureProof)
• Emily Wessel (BRW II Organizer)
  
• Rob Verchick (Loyola University)
  
• Chris Zevenbergen (IHE-UNESCO, TU Delft & Dura Vermeer, Netherlands)