The Lavin Bernick Center For University Life Tulane University   New Orleans, Louisiana

The Lavin Bernick Center project includes the redesign and expansion of the existing university center and surrounding campus area.  Coen + Partners collaborated with lead architect Vincent James Associates Architects to design exterior vegetative treatments for the building and to redesign a small pocket park adjacent to the University Center.

The design explores ways to convey the lushness of the semi-tropical New Orleans climate purely through form and texture rather than with color or variety. Therefore the material and plant palette are very simple: vertical planes of climbing vines extend from the building into the surrounding landscape; these insertions into the pocket park create soft divisions between passive and active spaces. Linear benches along thoroughfares and within the pocket park recall the horizontality of the building. These features required extensive material research and determined design direction in order to produce simple and beautiful site forms.

• Project lead: Vincent James Associates Architects
• Recent Awards:  2008  American Institute of Architects, Committee on the Environment (COTE) Award