A proposal for the New Orleans National Jazz Center.
Two projects by mOrphosis and TEN Arquitectos Two Infusions of Vision to Bolster New Orleans:

In the two years since Hurricane Katrina, what has the rebuilding effort produced? No grand designs. No inspired vision for the future of New Orleans. There have been only a handful of earnest, grass-roots proposals to preserve what’s left of the historic fabric.

What is interesting is the amount of time and energy being spent on both projects when macro issues such as the sustainability of the city, with its’ basic infrastructure still in shambles, is still in doubt. That both proposals are quite seductive is not in doubt, the question which needs to be asked is whether or not these projects should happen or if they are appropriate to the city; especially if the TEN Arquitectos project cuts off the city from the river:

In some respects the riverfront proposal reflects the willingness to turn over large segments of the public domain to private interests. The “towers in the park” could be seen as reinforcing class stratification: an enclave of luxurious glass towers overlooking the poverty-stricken neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward. Yet the notion of the riverfront as a cohesive element in a fractured city is powerful, especially because it avoids the banal historicism threatening to engulf what’s left of the authentic city.

Six Mile Park by TEN Arquitectos, Hargreaves Associates and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz.
This is very similar to what is happening at the Brooklyn Bridge Park where residential towers in the park will be used to pay for the yearly maintenance of the park premises. The commingling of public and private enterprise has drawn quite the controversy with the Brooklyn Heights Association being a chief critic (see position paper).
The developer and architects would be wise to engage the citizens of New Orleans, who are not just prospective consumers, but are stakeholders in the city and region.
Two Infusions of Vision to Bolster New Orleans
Designing New Orleans Slideshow

Madurodam @ Den Haag, originally uploaded by toaster!

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beneath-the-world, originally uploaded by bldgblog

Check out BldgBlog’s article Drains of Canada: An Interview with Michael Cook:

Michael Cook is a writer, photographer, and urban explorer based in Toronto, where he also runs a website called Vanishing Point.
Despite its subject matter, however, Vanishing Point is more than just another website about urban exploration. Cook’s accounts of his journeys into the subterranean civic infrastructure of Canada and northern New York State – and into those regions’ warehouses, factories, and crumbling hospitals – often include plans, elevations, and the odd historical photograph showing the sites under construction.
For instance, his fascinating, inside-out look at the Ontario Generating Station comes with far more than just cool pictures of an abandoned hydroelectric complex behind the water at Niagara Falls, and the detailed narratives he’s produced about the drains of Hamilton and Toronto are well worth reading in full.

Best of the web – check out the interview and the complete photo set.

Bulldozers and Blasphemy: In Latin America, Catholics are standing up to those who covet their gold and timber