Urban Landscape Lab

The Urban Landscape Lab is a research and service-learning center at the School of Landscape Architecture at LSU. The center’s mission is to design and build projects in distressed urban areas that promote the development of innovative, healthy and environmentally sustainable landscapes and provide hands-on learning opportunities for LSU students. There are four ongoing projects within the lab: the New Orleans Schoolyard Project, the St. Roch’s Neutral Ground Revitalization, the Viet Village Urban Farm Project and the New Orleans Garden Festival.

Urban Landscape Lab Personnel

• Wes Michaels, Director
• Elizabeth Mossop, Director of Research
• Kevin Benham, Research Associate
• Brad Cantrell, Research Associate

New Orleans Schoolyard Project

The New Orleans Schoolyard Project has worked with several schools since the hurricane in the New Orleans area to help revitalize devastated campuses. This work focuses on developing innovative design solutions that make children more active to combat childhood obesity, develop environmentally sustainable campuses, and engage the school children in design exercises. The *Prevention Research Center at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine has collaborated with the ULL to research impact of schoolyard design on children’s health and activity levels. Some of the schools the ULL has worked with include: the Priestly School for Architecture and Construction, and the Colton Elementary School.

St. Roch’s Neutral Ground Revitalization

The St. Roch’s project is located in a historic neighborhood in New Orleans devastated by the hurricane. This project, in collaboration with the *Prevention Research Center at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, develops a design for a series of six median areas (called neutral grounds locally) along historic St. Roch’s Avenue. The design process included extensive public participation and interviews with the local residents. The designs are focused on creating more physical activity in the neighborhood. Construction of the 1st phase of the design began in the fall of 2007.

Viet Village Urban Farm

The Viet Village Urban Farm project is located in east New Orleans, a Vietnamese-American community with long ties to this area of New Orleans. Over 90% of the pre-Katrina population has returned to this area. The Viet Village Urban Farm is an urban farming project on 21-acres of land located at the center of the community. The farm will support both household farming, producing crops for local consumption, as well as commercial crops for distribution to local New Orleans restaurants. Educational and recreational activities are also incorporated into the design to create a project that will be the new center of this urban community. This project is being developed in collaboration with the *City Center at Tulane University.

New Orleans Garden Festival

The New Orleans Garden Festival project is focused on bringing demonstrations of innovative and environmentally landscape design to the city of New Orleans. A yearly competition to design and build innovative landscapes will draw landscape architects, designers and artists from around the world to construct a series of demonstration gardens. LSU students will assist in the design and construction of the gardens. This project is in the development phase in collaboration with the non-profit Friends of the NOLA Garden Festival.