Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment

The Minor in Climate Change: Science and Practice prepares students with the subject matter expertise and analytical skills needed to support professional practices that advance climate change mitigation and adaptation. Jointly offered by the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment, the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and the School of Science and Engineering, the minor is open to any Tulane undergraduate regardless of major. Nearly all future professional practices will be shaped by the challenges and opportunities of climate change, and this minor is designed to meet students wherever they are.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/49A0OW3

FRIDAY FROM THE ARCHIVES | ALVAR BRANCH LIBRARY

Built through the Works Progress Administration in 1940, the Alvar Branch Library is a modest but enduring example of neighborhood-scale civic architecture in the heart of New Orleans' Bywater. Its restrained Art Deco styling and compact footprint reflect a period when public investment reached beyond monumental buildings to include everyday spaces designed to improve the lives of local residents.

Unlike many civic structures of its era, Alvar was designed to sit comfortably within a residential streetscape, feeling less like an institution and more like an extension of the neighborhood itself. Over the decades, it grew into a gathering place, cultural venue, and community anchor.

Its survival has never been guaranteed. In the 1970s, Bywater Neighborhood Association president Marc Cooper famously chained himself to the building to protest a proposed demolition. In the 1980s, residents organized volunteers to staff the branch when budget cuts threatened closure. And after Hurricane Katrina flooded the building in 2005, the library reopened in June 2006 and returned to its role as a center for learning and connection.

More than eight decades on, Alvar remains a Bywater fixture, kept alive by the community that refused to let it go.

Sources: New Orleans Public Library, Wikimedia Commons

Congratulations to the 2025–2026 Tulane Prize for Climate Change Curriculum in the Built Environment awardees!

The Center on Climate Change and Urbanism at the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment has honored faculty whose courses are redefining how students in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning approach the climate crisis.

Top honors went to Professor William W. Braham (University of Pennsylvania) in Environmental Building Design for Fundamentals of Bioclimatic Design, Professor Zachary Colbert (Carleton University) in Architecture for the Rights of Nature Studio, and Professors Philipp Urech (USI Mendrisio / ETH Zürich) and Susann Ahn (TU Wien) in Landscape Architecture for Making Greenways.

Six Honorable Achievement awards were also presented across a range of emerging curricular categories. Explore all recognized syllabi at https://bit.ly/4ohxqKd.

Tulane’s Sustainable Urbanism program prepares students to create more equitable, accessible, and environmentally responsible cities. Rooted in New Orleans, the program combines design, research, and interdisciplinary learning to address today’s most pressing urban challenges.

Available as a Bachelor of Science or Minor in Sustainable Urbanism.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4e0l6sW

FRIDAY FROM THE ARCHIVES | THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD

Before the sleek halls of Union Passenger Terminal welcomed travelers to New Orleans, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad maintained its own passenger station at the foot of Canal Street, where the Audubon Aquarium now overlooks the Mississippi River. Opened in 1902, the terminal served as the southern gateway to one of the nation's most extensive rail systems, operating more than 6,000 miles of track across the Southeast.

The station was a one-story brick building with a 165-foot concourse, separate waiting rooms, and a 550-foot train shed covering three passenger tracks. By the 1940s, six passenger trains arrived daily. At Canal Street and the riverfront, Louisville & Nashville tracks shared space with the Southern Pacific and the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, creating a dense web of transportation where rail, river, and street transit converged.

Among the station's most famous trains was the Crescent, which reached New Orleans over Louisville & Nashville rails from Montgomery, and the Azalean, which connected the city with Cincinnati and through Pullman sleeper service to New York. Together, these trains connected New Orleans to communities across the South and eastern United States during the height of passenger rail travel.

The station's role came to an end in 1954 when passenger operations moved to the newly completed Union Passenger Terminal. Soon afterward, the Canal Street terminal was demolished, leaving no trace of the building that once played an outsized role in the story of transportation and commerce in New Orleans.

Sources: Railroad Transportation Report for New Orleans-Louisiana, Bartholomew & Associates, Edward J. Branley, Louisiana Digital Library, New Orleans Public Library, The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Heather Veneziano, Director for Historic Preservation at the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment, was recently featured in the Times-Picayune sharing her expertise on the adaptive reuse of historic church buildings across Louisiana. With religious attendance declining and many historic church buildings falling out of use, Veneziano sees an opportunity for communities to reimagine these spaces in ways that reflect what their neighborhoods need today.

From wedding venues and music halls to restaurants, community centers, and civil rights museums, Louisiana is already home to a growing number of creative reuse projects. Veneziano notes that while the renovations are rarely simple, often requiring extensive work to bring aging buildings up to code, the results can be transformative for the communities that have long called these spaces their own.

Photo of St. Louis Cathedral by Qingju Wen.