The Little Yellow House That Katrina Built

A display home at the recent International Builders Show in Orlando may change the way the United States deals with emergency housing and affordable housing.

It’s not big and it’s not fancy. In fact, according to the St. Petersburg Times, it’s the opposite. It’s just a little yellow cottage (above) with a tin roof is exactly the size of the temporary trailers the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides to victims of hurricanes and other disasters, and it costs about the same: less than $35,000. But, where a FEMA trailer looks grim and boring, the new “Katrina Cottage” is airy, bright and even a little charming.

“I’m designing affordable housing,” said 31-year old Marianne Cusato, the cottage’s designer and architect.

The design is one of the products of the Mississippi Renewal Forum, held on that state’s coast in October. About 110 architects, planners and designers converged with 80 local counterparts at the request of Gov. Haley Barbour to brainstorm and rebuild 11 small coastal communities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. More than 50,000 homes were obliterated and 80,000 were damaged along a 120-mile stretch of Mississippi’s coastline.

Drawing on the original architecture and design detail of the area, the assembled team came up with a foot-high stack of reports and a pattern book of designs to guide the rebuilding process of the area’s communities, neighborhoods and single-family homes. Herein lies the project’s challenge, according to Andres Duany, a Miami architect and a leader in traditional neighborhood design.

“We have to bring it back better,” Duany explained. “If these communities are ever going to be spiritually whole, they can’t be pining about their past, always saying, ‘It was better before Katrina.’ The only way to renew these communities is for them to be better than before.”

The overarching goals of rebuilding the communities are:

• Making sure high-rises don’t wall off the beach.
• Ensuring that major highways don’t slash through downtowns and isolate neighborhoods.
• Making them walkable.
• Providing viable public transportation options.
• Encourage local retail while find a way to accommodate the big-box chains that bring necessary tax revenue.
• Support personal and economic diversity.
• Build community, with little touches like the front porch on the Katrina Cottage, where people sat and talked nonstop during the four-day convention.

In addition to charm, the original Katrina Cottage was built in just 20 days and offers three important things — versatility, flexibility and affordable housing. It’s no wonder manufacturers are interested in reproducing the house.

“The only reason not to do this is that it’s not the current conventional practice. But we can do this. Sometimes it takes a major event to change things, make us recalibrate,” Cusato said. “At first, I didn’t get it. Then I realized that hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, this year and every year. There will always be a need for emergency housing somewhere, for some reason.”

The cottage draws on the design of a traditional Mississippi coastal cottage. It is 14 by 22 feet, plus an 8-foot-deep porch. Inside the front door is a living/dining area. A small kitchen with a four-burner range and a full-size refrigerator, sink, and cabinets is to the right. Beside it is a full bath, and at the back of the house you can find a bedroom with two sets of bunk beds. The house features central air and heat, fiber-cement siding, and a metal roof.

Design matters. Architects’ sketches show how the cottage can be expanded and enlarged as need and money permit. The session generated a dozen plans for modestly priced housing in addition to Cusato’s design. Beyond speed of construction and permanence is what Cusato calls the “dignity factor.” In other words, providing disaster victims a permanent, attractive place to live that respects them and supports their desire to return to a normal life.

FEMA is not chartered to provide permanent housing, however. Its mandate would have to be changed in order for this trend to take hold. Individuals like Duany are hopeful. They plan to do what they can to encourage good design in Mississippi according to the principles developed by the forum by telling developers and builders their ideas.

“We’ll give you a straight pipeline — carry you through codes, insurance, FEMA, mortgages — if you do it well and follow our plans,” Duany said. “But everything has to be this nice. Come in planning to throw up cheap, ugly housing, and the way will be tougher. [The Gulf Coast] is 120 miles of really valuable Mississippi real estate. It’s hard to keep people out. You can’t say, ‘You can’t build there.’ But we don’t have to build back as badly as we have in the last 20 years, with neighborhoods dismantled or highways that ream out neighborhoods.”

The Katrina Cottage lends itself to a variety of uses:

• Housing for emergency workers.
• Habitat for Humanity housing.
• Student housing.
• Guest or in-law quarters.

The design team got good feedback and interest from builders and the manufactured-home industry at the builders’ show. The proof will come if anyone wants to put the cottage into large-scale production. As Cusato says, the story isn’t the cute yellow house, but that people are attempting to change the way we deal with emergency and affordable housing throughout the United States.

They could really be on to something here.