This week I am in New Orleans photographing the final days of the Future Ground competition. With design teams from around the country presenting their final ideas about how to utilize the vacant land that New Orleans possesses following Hurricane Katrina, my mind is taken back to all that time I spent in graduate school reading and rereading pieces of literature by and about the Detroit Works Project, which addresses a similar issue. It's always extra rewarding to photograph an event about a topic that I have so much interest in--to be inspired not only by the aesthetics of the subject matter but also the ideas at hand.
New Orleanians will be especially interested to find out more about this project. While I can't share who won the competition, I can share more information about it!
A few of my photos are included on this Architizer article:
http://architizer.com/blog/van-alen-design-comeptition-survey/
Still more of the photos in use on Van Alen's site in the Timeline and Jury sections:
https://vanalen.org/projects/future-ground/