A Day in New Orleans With Trahan Architects' Elaina Berkowitz

Elaina outside of the Trahan Architects’ New Orleans headquarters

Elaina Berkowitz is a designer at the New Orleans and New York-based Trahan Architects, and a member of The Architecture Lobby. Her day involves working on the renovation Mercedez-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, a walk through the French Quarter, and a classic NOLA cocktail to end the day.

Like everyone else, the coronavirus pandemic has modified my daily life in ways I never would have imagined. Luckily, my family and I have stayed safe during this pandemic, so I’ve been learning how to adjust my day-to-day rituals to live fully while keeping myself and my community safe. New Orleans suffered from an early outbreak, and while we’re slowly getting the virus under control, we still have work to do. While we recover, I’m learning first-hand about one of the things that makes New Orleans famous- that it’s a close-knit community of people who really care for each other. This is especially visible during the pandemic. People here are doing their best to keep each other safe — wearing masks in public, supporting local restaurants through take-out, and checking in on each other in parks, on porches, and from apartment balconies. While I miss many of the pre-pandemic aspects of New Orleans life, I’ve been lucky enough to adjust with new rituals and ways of working.

6:30am: I like to get exercise before I start my day. During the pandemic, I’ve developed a solid habit of walking around my neighborhood or doing yoga in my apartment each morning instead of going to the gym. I get to sleep in a little later since I don’t have to commute to the gym, which has been nice — although I miss going to the gym, where my favorite workout is swimming or yoga.

After a walk, I come home to check my email, make coffee, and get ready to head into the office. I don’t own a car and bike to work, which is about a mile from my apartment. On the way, I get a glimpse of the Mercedez-Benz Superdome, whose iconic form has a big presence in the city. Our office is doing the renovation, so it’s fun to see the stadium reflect Saints gold onto the city on my way into the office.

Elaina with Trahan Architects’ Founder and CEO, Trey Trahan

8:30am: We work closely with the New York office, so our day in New Orleans starts a little early so we can collaborate (New Orleans is an hour behind in Central Time). I often start my day with a team meeting, or I use some quiet time to look at my task list and prioritize for the day.

10:00am: After morning check-ins, I get to work on the Superdome. The project is a totally different scale than anything I’ve worked on. It involves lots of coordination, both internally and with our consultants. It’s like working on a small city. We were very lucky going into the pandemic because we were already set up to work on this project remotely — this is because we procured a 3D scan of the building to get all its complexities properly modeled in Revit. Having an accurate model of existing conditions was imperative so our team in New York, as well as our nationally-based consultants, could collaborate fluently. Being set up with that going into an unprecedented pandemic was extremely lucky, and allowed us to keep the project moving forward.

Another effect of the pandemic on our office was that we were forced to get better at quickly communicating internal design ideas online, rather than in-person pinups. A lot of my day will be spent creating drawings and discussing them over multiple platforms with the team. I’ve been impressed with how well we’ve learned to communicate together, and it’s great to be able to bounce around ideas with each other quickly. Luckily, our New York team got to visit the Superdome in person right before the pandemic- I’m looking forward to visiting them in their SoHo office once travel is safe.

Elaina in the French Quarter in New Orleans

1:00pm: I work best in the morning so I usually get in the zone doing a task, and then realize it’s already lunch time. Some days I’m busy and eat a quick lunch, usually something I bring. I’ve been getting vegetable boxes from a local farm called Covey Farms, so I’ll bring a salad. Other days I might need a break, so I go on a walk. Our office is about a 5 minute walk from the French Quarter, and I take a walk through it whenever I can- even in the heat of summer. I feel like I see a new restaurant, bar, or beautiful historic building on each visit.

4:00pm: We’re not all back in the office yet, and some of us- including myself- split our time between working in the office and working from home. Coming back to the office made me realize how much I missed interacting with people. With my mask on, I take joy in small breaks with my colleagues throughout the day. It could be a coffee break, a chat about updates from our business development team, or looking through materials with the Superdome team in our samples room.

5:30pm: At this point in the summer, there’s probably been a rainstorm in the afternoon, so it’s cooled off a bit. I bike home on St. Charles Avenue, usually racing the historic, still functioning streetcar — they go slow and it’s an easy win. I ride past one of our other projects, the New Orleans Conventions and Visitor’s Bureau, on the way home. We’re skinning the building with a perforated metal fin façade. In the evening, the building beautifully reflects the beginnings of a pink and orange sunset.

7:00pm: These days, connecting over video chat has become a part of daily life. After dinner, I often have a call with either a person or organization I care about. Lately, a lot of those calls have been with The Architecture Lobby. We’re an organization of workers advocating for the value of design labor within the profession, and to the public at large.

We have a lot of issues to organize around these days. I’ve been attending COVID Working Group calls, which address workplace inequities and precarity that have become especially exposed in the pandemic. We recently completed our first series of calls on Anti-Racism in Architecture, which we’re excited to continue. Our profession has a lot of work to do to address issues of class and race, and having conversations with people who genuinely care about making positive change is a great place to start.

9:00pm: New Orleans is a very social place, and there’s an amazing culture of neighborhood bars and restaurants where you can run into friends and make new ones. Obviously, that culture is on hold- but people are still socializing carefully in small groups, often with those you already interact with around your building or at work. For me, that’s included lots of bonding time with my landlords, my partner, and neighbors. We have an amazing backyard with a rain garden, which has been the perfect place to hang out with physical distance during the pandemic. Towards the end of the week, we’ll make a New Orleans classic cocktail — like a French 75 or a Sazerac — and socialize outside.

11:00pm: I’m still pretty new to New Orleans, and I feel like there’s so much to learn about this place. I always read before bed, and these days I’m consuming whatever books about New Orleans and the Gulf South that I can find. I just finished the book Rising Tides by John M. Barry, which is a history of the 1927 Mississippi River flood. It paints a picture of the cultural and economic history of the South and helps understand why we still have so many structural issues when it comes to race and environmental justice. My next book is The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, which is about a family from New Orleans East. New Orleans has been through a lot and always pulls through, and I’m looking forward to a return of the vibrant culture the city is known for.