L.B. Landry High School
L.B. LANDRY HIGH SCHOOL
Eskew+Dumez+Ripple
PROJECT YEAR
2010
LOCATION
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
CATEGORY
High School
Text description provided by architect.
This new high school for the Louisiana Department of Education Recovery School District was part of a post-Katrina “quick start” construction program to accelerate the replacement of five damaged schools within an extremely aggressive timeline (6 months for design and 20 months for construction) while a new comprehensive masterplan for the New Orleans school system was underway.
L.B. Landry High School occupies an important place in the city’s history – part of the reason for its accelerated rebuilding. The school was founded in 1938 as the first public high school on the west bank of the city that African-American residents could attend and only the second black high school established in Orleans Parish.
The 236,000 square foot building serves a student population of over 900 students and contains a 1000-seat competition gymnasium, a 250-seat auxiliary gym and a 650-seat auditorium.
Additional performing arts spaces include classroom and rehearsal spaces for dance, choir, band and art as well as a black box theatre.
The design establishes academic ‘houses’ for each grade level provided within two classroom wings.
The organization of these wings creates a central courtyard for outdoor gatherings space focused around a mature magnolia tree that existed on the site of the previous school.
The program also includes a media center/library as well as a health clinic, both of which are designed to provide after hours access to the general public for use as a community resource.
The building incorporates numerous sustainable design strategies, with a LEED for Schools Silver certification anticipated. Many of these, including a stormwater management system and photovoltaic energy harvesting system, were designed as highly visible, didactic elements of the project for use as teaching tools for faculty and students.
