URBANbuild is a year long design-studio at Tulane University. Traditionally, the studio designs a house in the fall, and builds it in the spring.  For URBANbuild08 the program was much more open-ended.  The fall semester was spent designing a mixed-use building for the site next to what was constructed in the Spring.  The first few weeks of the Spring were spent doing a fairly intense design-charette.  The result was 6 vendor "Pods" that can move throughout the site on a steel track & caster system.  The Pods can reconfigure on the site in order to adapt to different programmatic needs such as a festival, farmers market, or even a music venue.
 
 
In contrast to the construction of a house, this project had very few comparable precedents, and therefore a somewhat undefined "gold-standard" for construction.  This forced us to be more creative and inventive with the construction of the site and Pods.  As a result, we also had to manufacture many of the parts and pieces of the pods.  This provided an opportunity for the students to learn to work closely with concrete, wood, and steel extensively. 
 
 
20 students participated in the Fall design semester, and only 10 students participated in the Spring construction semester under the direction of Professors Byron Mouton and Tom Holloman.  Construction Began in late January and was completed in early May of 2013.