Botanical Garden Pavilion

New Orleans Botanical Garden Duplantier Volunteer Pavilion

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When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, architect and University of Kentucky lecturer Mike McKay felt the pull to go down to the Big Easy to help with a task that was anything but easy: rebuilding the devastated city. He moved to Louisiana for two years to lead the architecture school's Knoa Studio, a program that tasked studios to develop designs for neighborhoods, restaurants, and the city transit system. McKay moved back to Kentucky in 2007 but his work there was far from finished.

During the storm, many of the old cypress trees in City Park and its New Orleans Botanical Garden were uprooted and the gardens were decimated. McKay's uncle, Paul Soniat, was the botanical gardens director at the time and called McKay. A local woman had donated money to build a structure for volunteers, who were the main source of maintenance for the park after the storm, and they needed a design. With very little money, very generous material donors, and a modular system that incorporated the supplies, McKay created the New Orleans Botanical Garden Duplantier Volunteer Pavilion.

— Miyoko Ohtake

The 1,000-square-foot pavilion was completed in 2009 as a volunteer structure and tool shed--though today its used far more by the public than initially anticipated. "The garden was wiped out after the storm," McKay recalls. "There was nothing, zero. Volunteers came in and replanted everything." Photo by Frank Doering.

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