Changing Course competition seeks design solutions for the Lower Mississippi River Delta

NEW ORLEANS — The Leadership Team of Changing Course released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) that seeks multidisciplinary design teams interested in participating in an ambitious design competition. The Changing Course competition, with the support and participation of the State of Louisiana and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeks to develop approaches that demonstrate how, over time, the Mississippi River’s water and sediment can be used to maximize rebuilding of Delta wetlands in areas adjacent to the river below New Orleans and continue to meet the needs of navigation, flood protection, and coastal industries and communities.

This development of new approaches for the river, which may include suggestions for new alignments for the lower river, is directly responsive to needs identified in Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast (2012). Changing Course seeks to contribute additional innovation, competition, and private-sector engagement to the exploration of these needs, and do so in time for consideration during the next iteration of the coastal Master Plan in 2017.

Changing Course invites teams of internationally prominent engineers, coastal scientists, planners, and designers to respond to the competition RFQ, due Oct. 25, 2013. Successful entrants will be invited to a Request for Proposals Forum, held in New Orleans in January 2014. The design competition will consist of two phases — Framework Design and Concept Design — and will run through 2014.

The resulting visions will be vetted by technical experts, stakeholder and community interests, and the public.

For more information and to download the RFQ, visit www.changingcourse.us.