After the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the fall of 2005, entire towns, neighborhoods, and ecologies were destroyed. What remains is a complex web of social, economic, environmental, and cultural issues that demand new strategies for inhabiting this land.

During the spring semester of 2006, the University of Virginia School of Architecture incorporated these issues into the research and studio work of faculty and students, as well as undertaking hands-on projects in Louisiana and Mississippi. Building After Katrina is the result of that intense focus on a set...