Open Architecture Network

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The Mississippi coast community is rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina with more residents and businesses coming back everyday. It has been quite the struggle to get families back in safe and sustainable homes to rebuild their lives from, but homes are only a part of what makes a community. As families come back they also need the things that make them feel apart of a community. Neighborhood parks serve as vital gathering points for the community. They give families and neighbors a place to play, talk, and have family events and community meetings.

A group in Biloxi, Hands On Gulf Coast, has received a grant to rebuild neighborhood park shade structures destroyed in the 2005 hurricane. Rebuilding these shade structures is a small yet effective way to tell those coming back that the community is there with them. Architecture for Humanity Austin has secured the opportunity to design and build one of these park shade structures. Design will take place over a few weeks this summer ending with a week long construction trip in July 2008. Hands On has $1,200 for materials and all the additional construction volunteers needed. All that’s left is the help of designers to make these parks the hopeful spaces the community desperately needs.