Enchanted Cottages

This fall is the season of Marianne Cusato. At the end of the month, Lowe's will begin selling two variants of Ms. Cusato's "Katrina Cottage," which she designed as an alternative to the "FEMA trailer" for residents of Louisiana and Mississippi made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Last month, Ms. Cusato's Katrina Cottage won the People's Design Award of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, an award voted on by the public.

Marianne Cusato's Katrina Cottage

The FEMA trailer

She is co-author, with Richard Sammons, Ben Pentreath, and Leon Krier, of the forthcoming book Get Your House Right: How to Avoid Common Mistakes in Today's Traditional Architecture (Sterling Publishing). And on November 5, Fred A. Bernstein wrote a charming profile of Ms. Cusato for the "Habitats" column in the Sunday New York Times Real Estate section. Ms. Cusato likes to think small--or to think big about small things. Her own apartment in Greenwich Village is all of 300 square feet. But as the article made clear, she sees her home as extending beyond the walls of her own small apartment. Her home includes the view out her window. And it includes the vibrant sidewalks outside her building. Similarly, her Katrina Cottages are small--one is 544 square feet, the other is 936. But they are part of something larger, not only housing the victims of Katrina, but of creating high-quality affordable housing--"her life's goal," as Fred Bernstein noted.

Marianne Cusato studied architecture at the University of Notre Dame and worked in New York for Fairfax & Sammons, a firm with close ties to ICA&CA. (Anne Fairfax is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICA&CA.) The one thing that irked me in Fred Bernstein's piece was his description of Fairfax & Sammons as "designers of expensive homes with classical detailing." He could have written "designers of classical houses that tend to be expensive," which would have been both more accurate and would not have sounded like a dig.

Ms. Cusato's are not the only Katrina Cottages. Katrina Cottages is a movement. Read about it here. Read especially the statement of mission.

Comments

[Mary Scriver]

I love little houses in general (though my own is a massive 800 sq. ft) and little yellow houses in particular (Spent a summer in one 400 sq ft. -- the bathroom was so small that to have enough room to dry off, one had to go into the kitchen.) These houses are indeed classic, very much like the San Francisco earthquake houses except that the earthquake houses each had a wood stove. Those teeny houses are much loved and still exist as inhabited spaces, sometimes tucked in behind big houses. SO much better than any size of tin trailer!

Prairie Mary

[Laurence Aurbach]

By the way, the Lowe's Katrina Cottage page is online, with plans by Cusato, Moser and DPZ:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=pg&p=2006_landing/Katrina_Cottage/KatrinaCottage.html

Here's a direct link to the FAQ:
http://images.lowes.com/2006/ktc/Katrina_Cottage_FAQ.pdf

Here's a list of where the plans will be available starting Jan. 15, 2007. (Plans will be available later in Spring 2007 in all stores.)
http://www.lowes.com/lowes2/2006_landing/Katrina_Cottage/Store_List.htmlottage/Store_List.html

[Jeffrey Smith]

I love it. In fact, considering my general course of scaling back as I get older, I wouldn't mind living in one.

[Tatyana]

Francis,
I couldn't find your e-mail on this site; could you please write to the address I left above?
I need some professional advice (re: literature to prep myself for possible re-use work on neo-classical public building in Bkln)

Thanks in advance.

[Pamela B]

I would like to purchase a used FEMA travel trailer in Mississippi. How would I find out about those?

[aion kinah]

I like this car.