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The mission of the Katrina Cottage movement has been refined and expanded several times since Hurricane Katrina. The movement began the Saturday after hurricane in the offices of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company in Miami where Steve Mouzon met Andres Duany to strategize the New Urbanist response to the hurricane. The night before, Steve had received a call from his good friend and colleague Michael Barranco in Jackson, Mississippi, who was helping Mississippi Development Authority Executive Director Leland Speed set up the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal for Commission Chairman Jim Barksdale.

Michael asked Steve if he would come and speak to the Commission on the New Urbanism, but Steve, realizing the potential of such an event, said "that's far too big for me; let me call in Andres." Andres' response on Saturday was "that's far too big for both of us; let's call in the Congress for the New Urbanism." And so they did, but that is a broader story.

Part of the task at hand that Saturday was to craft an initial proposal for the Governor that laid out, among other things, a path for replacing the huge number of homes that had been lost on the Coast. Andres, who had seen firsthand the devastation of Hurricane Andrew fifteen years previously, and knew that Homestead, Florida still had a few FEMA trailers fifteen years later, housing residents whose homes still had not been rebuilt, realized quickly that the normal method of doing nothing but stick-building wood framed houses on-site would fall far short, probably requiring more than a century to rebuild. He stated early in the day that "This is a problem of such unprecedented proportion that no single delivery system is up to the task. We must have all hands on deck. We must have a solution that delivers houses that are manufactured, houses that are panelized, and houses that are site-built." Later, modular houses were differentiated from manufactured houses as two types of factory-built houses, and kit houses were added to the mix.

These are slides from the presentation Andres and Steve prepared for the Governor on September 6, 2005. These show the three types of housing originally contemplated in what became the Katrina Cottage movement: manufactured, panelized, and site-built:

These slides also illustrate the other foundation principles of Katrina Cottages in that they illustrate great existing houses that could be built using these delivery methods. Andres and Steve realized that rebuilding with nothing but construction speed as a goal likely would create a Coast that would be a regrettable place for centuries. So they added the goals of building houses of excellent design, and houses that would be appropriate to the regional conditions, culture, and climate. In other words, the houses should look and act as if they belonged on the Gulf Coast.

The foundation principles of Katrina Cottages, then, are these:

A. Design quality must be excellent.
B. Buildings must be appropriate to the regional conditions, culture, and climate.
C. Buildings must be deliverable by all major delivery methods, including manufactured houses, modular houses, kit houses, panelized houses, and site-built houses.

The work was so intense that within two weeks, both Andres and Steve had cancelled all other engagements to work on Katrina recovery, including a design charrette that Andres was scheduled to do in Europe. One of the early realizations was that FEMA was going to do something, but they didn't know what. Many fruitless hours were spent trying to find a single image of the proposed FEMA housing. They never did find that elusive image, but there was little doubt based on previous disasters that FEMA housing was going to be regrettable at best.

Travel trailers, for example, create a unique, quirky experience if you spend the weekend in one out at the lake. But try living in one for several years, and it's nearly impossible to tolerate. And at Homestead, after Hurricane Andrew, there were many children that had started kindergarten living in a FEMA trailer and graduated from high school living in the very same FEMA trailer. And the housing destruction of Katrina was at least one order of magnitude greater than that of Andrew.

So the fact was that people were going to spend a significant part of their lives; possibly most of their lives; living in whatever type of housing was provided. Living most of your life in an intolerable emergency shelter simply was unthinkable. So they set out in the early days to create housing that could be built for the same price as the total cost of the FEMA housing, which Andres knew would be higher than one would think due to his observations of the aftermath of Andrew. In short, the goal was to use the same money that FEMA housing would cost to build a little house with dignity and permanence.

The designs for the FEMA trailers became public near the end of the year, about the time their cost was announced: $70,000 apiece to construct, transport, set up, maintain, and de-commission 18 months later. Here is what the victim gets to use for 18 months for the $70,000 the taxpayers spend:

After that, the victim gets nothing, nor does the taxpayer, because most of the units will likely be de-commissioned. The fact is that because they were going to be in use for years longer than the mandated 18 months, the cost would actually be thousands higher. But even if the $70,000 was accurate, it was what had been needed: a real benchmark number for a goal. Many of the early Katrina Cottage plans were specifically designed to be deliverable for less than this amount. Here is Katrina Cottage VII, which is just as mobile as a FEMA trailer, but designed to last for 100 years or more. And it can be purchased for tens of thousands of dollars less than the $70,000 total cost a FEMA trailer. Even if the price were the same, which would you rather have?

Later, when it was announced that people who had lost their house would receive up to $150,000 from FEMA, a second type of Katrina Cottage emerged: the larger cottage that would be deliverable for $150,000, and that would not need to grow in the future to meet the needs of the family living in it.

FEMA trailers get by with many conditions that would be considered deplorable in America because they are considered to be temporary housing. Many of these conditions have been codified into "decent housing" laws, which can be found throughout American housing-related law, from HUD, to Fannie Mae, to the VA, to building codes, etc. The problem with "decent housing" laws is that the only measuring stick they use is physical size. For example, if a living room is less than a certain size, it is in violation of "decent housing" laws, no matter how charming or how serviceable it is.

It was clear from the beginning that if Katrina Cottages were going to replace FEMA trailers, they would have to be small. And the smaller they get, the smarter they must get to satisfy the foundation principle of excellent design. But "decent housing" laws only understand size; they require rooms to be big, even if it means that they must be stupid. "Decent housing" laws do not understand the principle of Smaller & Smarter.

Katrina Cottage I, designed by Marianne Cusato and built for the International Builders' Show in Orlando in January, 2006, violated several "decent housing laws." Yet, when visitors at the show were asked "what do you see that is indecent about this cottage?," they almost invariably pulled out their wallets and tried to place an order. Here is the cottage; you be the judge: what is indecent about this?

Efforts almost since the beginning of the Katrina Cottage movement have therefore focused on the redefinition of "decent housing" in America to be based also on quality, not just quantity. That mission continues to this day.

The architects and designers of the early Katrina Cottages were so focused on the enormous needs of the Gulf Coast that they did not initially consider all of the other things that the Katrina Cottage idea could do. One capability that became obvious early in 2006 was the ability of Katrina Cottages to make huge inroads into America's affordable housing problem. The Katrina Cottage principles have been shown so many times since then to be up to the task of increasing affordability that affordability has become one of the missions of Katrina Cottages.

The idea of building a small, affordable cottage and then expanding over the years into a larger house is a very old idea, and one that was used all over America (and the world) until the past century. Even President Thomas Jefferson used this idea, living in one of the little cottages beside the garden at Monticello as he built the mansion to which the cottage was attached. But the physical size of the cottage is not the only source of savings. Here are other savings that result from living in a Katrina Cottage, whether or not you are going to expand it into a larger house over the years:

A. Smaller cottages that are not intended to expand a lot can be placed on very small lots. Cottage Courts typically require as little as 1/30 of an acre net land per cottage. Obviously, a 1/30 acre lot doesn't ordinarily cost as much as a ½ acre lot down the block. Strangely enough, because they often use the same 5' side yard setback as much larger lots, the houses actually appear to be more loosely spaced because the proportion of the house is smaller.

Here's how Katrina Cottage Courts can look:

Design & Image Courtesy of Urban Design Associates

B. Smaller lots help make neighborhoods more compact and therefore more walkable because they place more households within walking distance of the corner store, the neighborhood school, the playground, and the meeting hall. People who live in compact, walkable places with a diversity of uses need to drive less... in many cases, much less. As a matter of fact, people who move to compact, walkable, diverse neighborhoods often sell one or more of their cars in a few months because they don't need all of them anymore. Because the total cost of owning a car in the USA, counting payments, maintenance, insurance, gas, washing, etc., is close to $10,000, every car that you don't need lowers your cost of living substantially. Check the New Urban Guild website for articles on this sort of Town Planning.

Streets that look like this generally don't occur where wide houses are scattered far apart, or if they do, people don't often walk on them because it's a lot further from one destination to the next:

C. For every hour per year you don't have to spend driving, you have an hour that you can spend doing something else. Some might spend the extra time making more money, which makes everything more affordable, while others may spend the time simply relaxing, or doing things with their family.

Deciding what to do with your extra time in places that are compact and walkable in part because the houses are narrower is much better than trying to decide which route to take to avoid the traffic:

D. All except the largest cottages are one room deep, so they cross-ventilate exceptionally well. Their metal roofs reflect the great majority of the heat of the summer sun, and the ceilings are tall, allowing warmer air to rise away from the occupants of the room in summer. Window proportions are taller and windows are true double-hung so residents can lower the top sash and raise the bottom sash on summer evenings, allowing warm air near the ceiling to escape and cooler air to enter at the bottom. In short, they cool themselves better than larger houses can, reducing the air conditioning season significantly, thereby saving on utilities. These features are appropriate to architecture of the South and the mid-Atlantic region. Because one of the core principles of Katrina Cottages is to be appropriate to the climate of a region, Katrina Cottages for other places would look different as a result of responding to colder weather or dryer weather in those regions.

Metal roofing is one of several southern Katrina Cottage features that save on heating and cooling costs:

E. Katrina Cottages can be manufactured in places where labor and/or material costs are low and shipped to places where construction costs are high, potentially saving thousands or tens of thousands per cottage.

San Francisco has one of the highest construction costs in the nation; how much could be saved by installing Katrina Cottages there?

F. Excellent design appreciates faster than mediocre design. Because one of the foundation principles of Katrina Cottages is excellent design, they should be better investments than regular houses. While this doesn't help reduce your costs before you sell your cottage, it certainly helps from that point forward once you've rolled your extra profits into your next house. The flip side to this idea is that poor design actually loses value. There is a movement in America today that proclaims that it is important to consider the destination of building materials when the building is torn down. We agree, if you plan to build buildings that cannot be loved, and that are likely to be demolished in 15-25 years. But would it not make much more sense to design buildings that could be loved for 100 years? Or 200 years? Or even for 1,000 years? This can be done... our ancestors have done it; why can't we?

The best design becomes priceless over time, even when its physical condition eventually deteriorates, as seen here, while the worst design becomes worthless. Which would you rather own?

G. The foundation of the "Smaller But Smarter" idea is the notion that most things in a house should do double- or triple-duty. A privacy curtain should be an energy-saving device. A beautifully proportioned window should be that way to assist with cooling. A front porch should be entry, summertime dining room, and observation perch. Doing two or three jobs with one thing means that you don't have to buy two or three things... you just buy one.

Here's the porch of Katrina Cottage I at the International Builders' Show acting as both entry shelter and a place to visit:

H. You will notice that at no point in this part of the Affordability Mission does it say that Katrina Cottages should be affordable because they are built of cheap construction. They are not. As a matter of fact, Katrina Cottages are built of exactly the same materials as most million-dollar houses and upwards. This means that site-built Katrina Cottages are almost always sure to cost over $100/square foot, while those delivered using more automated systems (like modular or manufactured cottages) may cost somewhat less. But because of the efficiencies of turning out large numbers of a particular cottage design, it is actually possible to build with details that are unaffordable on larger houses costing less than $5 million to $10 million. The net result is that because the components, the details, and the proportions are so good, Katrina Cottages can fit right into a neighborhood of large, expensive homes because they are just as good if not better than the construction of their neighbors. This may be the greatest affordability benefit of Katrina Cottages, because this is a feat that has never before been pulled off in the modern history of affordable housing. Here are a few examples from Katrina Cottage VIII while it was under construction of the sort of construction that can be used when the houses are mass-produced:

Everything in Katrina Cottage VII is solid materials; no veneers over cheaper substrates. This beam that is about to be set is solid timber:

Here's the bathroom; the floor is solid slate; the walls are ceramic subway tile:

This is the window head casing, which was composed of custom-milled wood shapes. This would not have been affordable except for the fact that such a great quantity is custom-milled when houses are mass-produced:

This is the window sill. Note the beaded board wainscot and the horizontal board siding, which allows for almost anything (chair hooks, shelves, cabinets, appliances, etc.) to be attached to the walls at any point:

Here are the front porch columns. They were custom-turned to a profile not available in any column store. They were also turned out of a single solid cedar timber. Neither of these features is available in custom houses built for less than several million dollars:

These are the front porch and stair railings. This sort of picket design would be prohibitive on normal custom houses, but can be accomplished in the factory because factories can afford to set up jigs to turn out large quantities of details such as these: