In the months and years following 2005’s Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans became the focus of an unprecedented array of reconstruction and recovery projects. Though many rural regions of South Louisiana were similarly devastated by the storms, substantially fewer resources were focused on the renewal and reconstruction of these areas.
In the months following the hurricanes, a collaborative effort between the Terrebonne Readiness and Assistance Coalition (TRAC), Oxfam America, and the Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement (SIGUS) at MIT, focused on creating a new model for affordable reconstruction housing for the communities in the bayou region of South Louisiana. The LiftHouse is designed to model common sense approaches to durable, environmentally sound, affordable housing for this rural region which is coping with the direct impacts of global climate change.
The initial discussions were held late 2005, and a MIT-SIGUS class took up the challenge in the Spring 2006. Initial designs were completed by the summer. Formal professional working drawings were completed in the fall of 2007, and construction of the houses started in 2007.
The first prototype LiftHouse was completed in the community of Chauvin in 2007. By 2008 the second and third houses were constructed in Dulac and Bayou Dularge respectively. The fourth house in Dulac was completed in 2009. The 5th house was completed in March 2010 (near Dulac) and the 6th house in Dularge was completed in August 2010.