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While on break from Architecture School in 1997, I visited New Orleans for the first time for the Jazz & Heritage Festival. I was immediately taken not only by the beauty of the architecture, the delicious food, and unique culture of the area but by the city's people, their history, and -- of course -- their music! The day after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, as I watched the terrible scenes of destruction on television, I could not help but feel a desire to reach out and help those affected by the loss of their homes.

My design for the Papillon Cottage was born out of a desire to celebrate and recall the beautiful houses which I remember seeing in the New Orleans neighborhoods that I had visited. When Andres Duany put out a call to design cottages as an alternative to the FEMA trailer, I looked to a book by Malcolm Heard published by Tulane's School of Architecture about New Orleans called French Quarter Manual. As I poured through the architectural precedents illustrated in the book, I was inspired by the traditional cottages built in the "Vieux Carré" and was particularly attracted to the quality and character of those structures from the 1800s. To me, these buildings seemed to embody the aspects of New Orleans heritage that I experienced while there. While many elements of the Papillon Cottage have historical inspiration, the design of the structure and the configuration of the plan are inherently contemporary. For the name of the cottage, I chose the French word for 'butterfly', since the plan is double-wide in configuration and is symmetrically divided by a central hall. It is my hope that this cottage can be built even once as a small part of the efforts needed to help repair New Orleans and the Gulf Coast so that they re-emerge as the historically significant places they are.

I dedicate this cottage to my friend Brian Zelizo who died tragically of a brain injury in New York City on January 30, 2000. He was part of the group that accompanied me to New Orleans for the music festival and, like me, fell in love with the city and its cajun/zydeco music while there. I have a feeling that he would have wanted to be involved with the re-building effort in any way possible.

Laura Anne Bossardt Welsh
October 2006