New Orleans is a city unlike any in the world. From its infamous Mardi Gras parades to its rich jazz heritage, the entire city seems to pulsate with life. Even its housing stock is remarkable, with a collection of distinctive residential styles. The Broadmoor neighborhood in particular is home to two decidedly New Orleans housing types – the early twentieth century styled shotgun and the basement house. These styles account for almost half of the homes in Broadmoor, and many of them are designated on the National Historic Register. When designing within this context, it is important to look at the historic styles not as templates, but as frozen moments of innovation. At their inception, the styled shotgun and basement home were specific responses to the city's climate, site, and history. New Orleans jazz musicians utilize this same process to respond to musical context through improvisational solos. The Groove House carries on this tradition – and takes its name from it – resulting in a design that not only represents New Orleans' past, but reacts to the present and serves as a catalyst for the future.
Groove House seeks to modernize the traditional shotgun home typology by imbuing it with passive design strategies and principals of universal design. The shotgun's linear layout of spaces is enhanced by bisecting the home with a circulation path, allowing for increased natural ventilation, natural light, and ease of mobility. Spaces flow from public to private beginning with a grand staircase, stadium seating, and large front porch that engage the active street life of Broadmoor. The open floor plan utilizes adjacencies, volume, and natural light to make the most out of tight square footage constraints. A private porch with large sliding glass doors acts as a pivot for the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and blurs the line between indoor and outdoor summer living.
The result of combining historical context with passive design strategies is at its most apparent in Groove House's powerful massing. The traditional gabled roof of the shotgun home is rotated at its peak to form a single sloped roof. Combined with operable clerestory glazing along the leeward western facade, the form harvests south-eastern summer breezes for natural ventilation by enhancing the stack effect. The standing seam metal roof is then continued down the eastern façade to accentuate the mass and protect the home from tropical storms.
By placing an emphasis on passive design strategies that allow the building to interact with its environment, Groove House ensures that its inhabitants play a critical role in the home's operation. Groove House is designed to be cooled using natural ventilation for most of the year, demanding owner participation to open and close windows and operate retractable shading devices. In return, the inhabitants will directly experience how their daily actions play into the energy efficiency of the home. Principles like the stack effect and cross ventilation are easily grasped when you interact with them on a daily basis.
Groove House also contains multiple strategies to educate its inhabitants about water conservation and stormwater management. A cistern fed by a gutter than runs along the back half of the home collects rainwater for irrigation purposes. Rain that hits the front half of the roof is directed down the home's east wall and in to a bioswale. This synthesized water management strategy allows Groove House's owners to experience two very different ways to protect a precious resource.
Finally, the Groove House design team will provide the owners with monthly utility bill targets. The design's energy usage was modeled in Autodesk Ecotect, Green Building Studio, and EnergyGauge USA to ensure predicted energy targets are accurate. Armed with these figures, the owners will have a reference point to measure not only the performance of their home, but their own performance in operating the home as well. Not that enjoying fresh air, natural light, and plenty of outdoor living space is hard work.
Groove House's exterior design is firmly rooted in its context. The large front porch, dramatic stairway, and storm shutters all pay homage to the neighboring houses. The material palette takes its inspiration from the culture; the bold purple, gold, and green of the Mardi Gras flag is reinterpreted in standing seam metal, wood siding, and native landscaping. Fiber cement siding and FSC certified wood siding are sustainable versions of neighborhood facade materials. Gabion walls clad the base of the Groove House and ensure that the raised design meets the ground handsomely. The gabion walls also reference the brave men and women who used the same material to fortify the levees before and after Hurricane Katrina struck.
Attention to detail throughout the design ensures that Groove House attains LEED Platinum certification while complying with Universal Design guidelines and staying on budget. A residential lift is cleanly integrated into the design of the front porch, ensuring all users can experience the entry sequence. ADA clearances and guidelines are met throughout the design. Material choices and design decisions were constantly evaluated against cost and sustainability criteria, creating a process where limiting factors became fuel for innovation. The result is a replicable design that responds to its context, to its users, and to its environment.
