As part of a neighborhood-wide effort to improve Freret’s streetscape, the Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, a non-profit housing organization, contracted Design Corps, a national non-profit technical service organization, to coordinate a participatory design process with local residents and organizations.
Through a series of community meetings, the concerns of the Freret community were discussed and a specific need for a neighborhood bus shelter emerged. The resulting community transit shelter acts primarily as a bus shelter but also includes many of the amenities requested in the stakeholder meetings. These amenities include a children’s play wall behind the shelter, a public bulletin board, and a community planter. Those using the bus stop have direct sight lines up the street and an ADA accessible wheelchair space. Thus, the transit shelter materialized as a “swiss army knife shelter”, or a relatively small space in which many activities and uses are condensed.
In addition to fulfilling the needs of the community, it was also important to the stakeholders that the shelter embodied the community and also utilized local businesses and local products. In response to this, he roof is comprised of aluminum and polycarbonate plastic and is patterned with the neighborhood’s symbol – the sunflower. The shelter is also painted with bright colors, a reference to the surrounding homes and buildings. The steel and aluminum components of the bus shelter were all fabricated in or close to the city of New Orleans. Most of the wood was also collected locally from various salvage yards around the city.
