introduction

ddbNOLA, Digital Design Build New Orleans, Lousiana, is a team that began as a Clemson University architecture studio researching and designing the Dry-In House. The end product of that studio was a mockup of a corner of the house built on Clemson's campus. Since then, the studio has moved on to New Orleans. The team consists primarily of two faculty members - Doug Hecker and Martha Skinner, two Clemson Architecture alumni now living in New Orleans - Jackson Blalock and Melissa Vandiver, and two team members still in South Carolina - Vincent Vimbaco and Mandi Young. To learn more about the Dry-In House, visit our website.



The ddbNOLA team is in New Orleans to build the first ever Dry-In House for the Rev. Earl Williams, a community leader in the hurricane-devastated neighborhood of Hollygrove. The Dry-In House seeks to address the problems that face many residents of post-Katrina New Orleans, including that of the FEMA trailer, which is a temporary and expensive solution to a long-term and expensive problem. We seek to provide affordable yet customizable housing through the use of digital fabrication technology. We seek to minimize the amount of skilled labor required to build a house and to bring the community together through the process of rebuilding itself. We also seek to bring high design to Hollygrove as a solution to a problem, rather than a luxury reserved for the wealthy.

There are three main systems that make up the Dry-In House: the core, the superstructure, and the skin. The core is a prefabricated bathroom and partial-kitchen unit, which houses the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems as well as the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. It is built off site and installed onto a foundation, after which the of prefabricated wood trusses is raised around it. On top of the superstructure a skin of prefabricated structurally insulated panels (SIPs) is installed and the house is dried in. After this process, the owner can move in and customize his finishes and other details as time and money permit.




Construction has just begun on the core in a warehouse near Hollygrove. There will be a post showing the status of that soon.