Gulf Coast Trip Part 1 - Baton Rouge

We all headed out at 6 AM on Monday, January 30 for a 6-day trek in the Gulf Coast. The next several posts will show what we did and saw. It was a packed trip so be prepared!

After arriving in New Orleans, we picked up a van that ironically had Iowa license plates! We then drove to Baton Rouge via I-10. Baton Rouge is about 90 minutes north of New Orleans on the Mississippi River and almost all of the highway is essentially a bridge built over the cypress swamps surrounding Lake Ponchartrain and the river delta.

Jeff Carney at ISU students at the Coastal Sustainability Studio.

On Tuesday, we met with Jeff Carney, director of the Louisiana State University Coastal Sustainability Studio. The CSS in a research center in which faculty and students from a wide range of disciplines collaborate and work with federal, state, and local organizations to develop a better understanding of the river delta system and its implications for cities and neighborhoods. The CSS employs 15-20 graduate assistants from architecture, landscape architecture, and geography and has a great work space in the LSU College of Art + Design. 


The CSS approaches their projects using a transdisciplinary method and systems approach that informs design thinking and informed speculation, using information from the sciences to inform design ideas about how human settlement can exist in partnership with the complex river delta systems. The studio works to build capacity with the university through a lecture series, courses, and interactive website. They promote design resilience through their research and design projects, and they distribute their knowledge through design practice, outreach, and publications. They have worked on a wide array of projects including the 2012 Louisiana master plan, scenario-based alternatives for the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, and a video on the rural community of Myrtle Grove done with the National Wildlife Federation. You can learn more about the CSS's projects at http://css.lsu.edu/.

Google Earth image of the arpent system along Bayou Lafourche.

At Jeff's suggestion, we had lunch at the Chimes in Baton Rouge, a restaurant in an old movie theater that is still used as a music venue. We then headed toward New Orleans via State Highway 1 along Bayou Lafourche. This route allowed us to see the French arpent system that divides land into long strips with settlement clustered along the bayou which acted as the transportation system. 

In an on-going search for alligators (who we subsequently learned are mostly sleeping at this time of year), we stopped near La Place and encountered a small gator up close and personal!


We then headed into New Orleans and checked into St. Vincent's Guest House, our accommodations for the next 4 nights. More on New Orleans and St. Vincent's in the next post!