Actor Brad Pitt is Helping to Rebuild

Six months ago, in the shell of a house just blocks from the now infamous Industrial Canal breach, a displaced resident of New Orleans' most ravaged neighborhood went head to head with a Hollywood megastar.

Brad Pitt, flanked by a team of world-class architects, had just finished explaining his plan to build 150 affordable, environmentally friendly, storm-safe houses for residents of the worst-swamped section of the Lower 9th Ward. The houses would sit, he said, on the same lots where their old homes once stood.

Standing under generator-powered light bulbs, some 30 neighborhood activists contemplated the pitch. It was hardly the first scheme an enterprising outsider had offered these residents, who after finally being allowed to return to their battered homes three months after Hurricane Katrina put up lawn signs attacking big developers they feared were waiting to gobble up their land.

Despite Pitt's celebrity acclaim, thorough presentation and pledge to put his own money into the project, the idea met with only cautious optimism. This community, deeply cynical of promises made but rarely kept, had survived for years amid abandoned properties, failing public schools and escalating crime fueled by the illegal drug trade.

Giving voice to a feeling that several people in the room recently said they shared, the man stood up and warned Pitt that he couldn't stroll into the neighborhood -- even in its ruined state -- and reengineer its future without their consent.

"You have to earn our trust," he said.

With the announcement this week of the $12 million Make It Right project, a venture strikingly similar to the concept Pitt laid out in March, it appears the actor met his challenge.

Despite rampant skepticism, Pitt, bolstered by a nonprofit real estate investment group specializing in sustainable development, got nine civic groups with strong ties to the Lower 9th Ward to sign on to the project. They joined 13 architecture firms from around the globe that soon lent their efforts for free.

Meeting every Wednesday evening, residents and planners worked together on what the new houses would look like, from open floor plans in shotgun-style houses to the inclusion of roof-level patios as havens from rising water.

In keeping with one of Pitt's driving principles, architects explained elements of "green" construction to residents who lost decades-old homes that, while rich in family history, were riddled with cracks that let cool air and heat escape, driving up power bills. Many structures in the Lower 9th Ward also were caked with dangerous lead-based paint.

Homes built through the Make It Right program, the architects said, would have energy-efficient appliances, south-facing roofs laden with solar panels, outdoor space for composting and interior finishes made from products that are not harmful to residents' health or the environment.

At each weekly session, residents and architects shared their ideas for the revival of an area that Mayor Ray Nagin described for months after the storm as a place residents should beware of rebuilding.

Recalling the process this week, residents said that each time the architects returned to their drawing boards, they came back with more of neighbors' suggestions integrated into their blueprints, from the inclusion of back-up fuel sources for solar-powered appliances to wheelchair ramps to reach elevated first floors.

Steven Bingler, founder of the local architecture firm Concordia, said the innovative partnership helped architects tailor their designs to residents' needs, in contrast to the ready-made prototypes typically offered to potential buyers in middle-class subdivisions.

But more importantly, Bingler said, the Make It Right process became an exercise in democracy as it upended the traditional model of home buying and offered working-class people high-quality choices in new construction -- the sort generally reserved for the upper-middle class and the wealthy.